Socical Health

Physical health + Social Health = Socical Health

I used to spend all my days connecting my physical health limitations and problems to why I am not normal socially, but I have strayed from connecting these for a while. I am going to revisit this idea (that all aspects of our personal health are connected and affect/effect the others).

And for those who would argue that I am normal socially, I am really not, because I am not normal physically. The circular reasoning should come around if you keep reading. Besides, the definition of disease is that it prevents normal functioning. It is. Look it up.

Quick review: Some of the aspects of our personal health:

• Physical
• Mental/Emotional
• Intellectual
• Social
• Spiritual
• Aesthetic

There are more, such as economic and sexual, but the bulleted ones are the ones I pay attention to. Guess what? They are all connected. I took a class on it. Called Personal Health. And if one is having a bad day, then chances are others will be having bad days too. If one is having a good day, chances are the others will have a good day too. This isn't an absolute, but it tends toward true more often then not.

Think about it, when you are depressed you are often physically not feeling good. When you are in the hospital physically not feeling good then family and friends come and visit you often suddenly feel better. The aspects of our personal health affect/effect each other. This can be good and it can be bad.

So lets say I feel like crap physically every day of my life, practically literally? How will this effect everything else? Well, that depends...Lets look at socially. Lets look at talking on the phone. Here are a combination of thoughts from my aunt and me about talking on the phone:

• I am a slow thinker, and a deep thinker. It takes me a while to trudge through all the thoughts. Talking on the phone tends to be a quicker thinking game, which I am not very good at. I spend all day lost in thought, and it may take me weeks to perfect one sentence as a writer. The thinking involved in conversation isn't something I do well. It really isn't. I process slowly and carefully, and thus don't really like something I am not that good at. It isn't my fault I think differently, is it?
• Thinking is exhausting, especially the quick thinking. Can't we just think silently and infrequently and slowly for a while? Be alone together, that kind of thing. I am tired. 32 flavors of tired. Formulating thoughts is exhausting and that is what I labor over all day as a reader and a writer. The brain is a muscle right... or something.
• What I want to say never comes out quickly, and if I force it quickly, it comes out wrong and then I have to explain what I was really trying to say. When I write quickly or am talking quickly the words that come out never sound right. They are close but not exactly what I was trying to say. And then, more thinking is involved when I try to correct what I just said. Exhausting.
• My skin hurts. My hair hurts. The glasses on my nose hurt. Being in one position for too long, more than five minutes, hurts. My body cramps up, tightens up, and aches. I hold the phone, cell phone, with my pointer finger kinda holding the weight of the phone, and I don't realize it hurts when I am holding it, until half an hour later when we hang up, and then I have to splint my finger because it is killing me. My hand hurts too. My wrist. My arm. Holding the phone is so hard for me to do. 32 flavors of pain.
• So then to have to put a limit on how long we can talk, for like only five minutes or so, is rude and I just don't sound friendly if I do that. Or in the middle of them pouring their heart out to me or telling me a story I am like, "I'm sorry my finger is broken, I have to go. Call in a couple weeks when I have recuperated." I am not sure how nice that really is, or if I will still have friends.

These are just a few thoughts. And the talking on the phone thing can easily with your brains be imagined with similar communicating situations, like typing on the computer or writing a letter--oh my, writing a letter....my hands can't open a bottle of water, and you want me to write a letter...I'm sorry, but try again.

So yeah, there are realistically aspects of communicating and being social that I can control, but if you take a good look at how I feel physically, I think a lot of it isn't in my control. Imagine having the flu. You are sucked of life, of energy. You are achy all over. You have a bit of a sore throat. You haven't eaten much or drank much. You haven't showered in days. You haven't slept because of all of this. Feel icky yet? Good. Because now you know how I feel almost every day.

When you have the flu do you want to pick up the phone and call all your friends? No you don't. You want to lounge around, mainly because that is all you can do. Do you want to go out to dinner? No you physically can't. Do you want to sit at your computer and check all your emails? No you don't. That is my life. I have a disease. This disease prevents me from functioning normally. My physical health situation affects/effects my social health situation. End of lesson.