Living, Surviving, and Thriving

Living. Breathing in and out. Meeting our basic needs. Just getting by.

What kind of life is that?

Simply living each day, is that enough?

Is that all that we have to look forward to?

Is that the best we can hope for, just living?

Fighting through the pain each day, just to wake up the next day and do it all over again. Living with psoriatic arthritis is like facing the same mountain, everyday, again and again. Up, up, up we climb, fighting to live the best we can. Only to find ourselves the next morning, at the base of the same mountain, facing the same climb up, over and over again.

Coping on dark days

On the dark days, the ones where the pain wins and my thoughts are colored grey, this is all I see. All around me are endless days spent simply being on that edge, that place where it is all I can do to make it to the end of the day. Living those days on the edge of a cliff knowing that by the time my head hits the pillow at night, the best I have to say is that “I lived through the day.” I was able to push past the pain. My bare minimum requirements were met, and at the end of the day, I was still breathing.

Life should be about so much more than simply breathing.

Living.

Existing.

We should be capable of so much more.

I don’t want to just exist. I don’t want to simply live. I want to thrive!

Learning to thrive with PsA

We should be able to prosper, to flourish. Life with psoriatic arthritis should be more than simply making it to the end of each day. We shouldn’t have to limit ourselves because of psoriatic arthritis. I don’t want the pain and fatigue of psoriatic arthritis to hold me back.

But reality is something altogether different. Our reality is that there are days when all we have to say at the end of the day is that we made it. That we are still breathing. We are still living. We are existing, if even barely.

I want with all my heart to leave you with a positive message. I want to assure you that we don’t have to settle with “simply living” with psoriatic arthritis, that we can thrive, we can flourish. But I know that the days are hard. Our days are spent climbing that mountain, feeling like we will never make it to the top.

So how do we do it? How do we stay positive and climb that same mountain, over and over everyday?

• Offer a helping hand.
• Give a kind word.
• Share a smile.
• Give a hug.

These simple acts of kindness let others know that we are not alone. We are not climbing up this mountain without safety nets and security, alone on the trail. We have each other. As we climb the mountain each day, we need to remember to look around and see that we are not alone. We are not by ourselves simply doing our best to live.

We are together, climbing that mountain and together, we can thrive.