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My Criteria For Comfortable Clothes & What I’m Loving Right Now
Finding comfortable clothes can be a major challenge, especially when you have a chronic illness (or two, or three…).
I have fibromyalgia, Raynaud’s and asthma, among other things, which all contribute to my needing clothes that don’t cause any of my health conditions to flare up.
And, as I talked about in this post, it helps me to when I wear clothes that look fashionable because looking presentable makes me feel better. As Gretchen Rubin has talked about in her podcast, wearing clothes that look like clothes (vs. pjs) improves your mood.
Some of the links in this post are affiliate links, which means I receive a small portion of sales, at no additional cost to you, if you click through and make a purchase.
Here are some of the things I look for in clothes:
Soft/breathable fabric—a must for comfort, as well as to help with my issues with temperature regulation. I’m usually freezing. I aim to buy mostly cotton clothing, but it’s surprising how hard that is to find anymore.
Not too tight or restrictive—I already have pressure points and difficulty breathing—the last thing I need is for my clothes to make this worse! A good, flattering fit helps me to look and feel my best.
Makes me feel my best—for me, this means non-pj shirts. To be honest, I usually wear pajama pants around the house because they don’t hurt my hips, so if I’m wearing a “normal” top, I still feel like I’m “dressed” and ready for the day. (If you’re most comfortable in pjs due to pain/illness/etc., the last thing I want to do is make you feel badly about it! Taking care of yourself with your wardrobe is the most important thing.)
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Superpowers You Gain From Chronic Illness and Chronic Pain
Just for fun, I thought I’d write a post about all the “superpowers” we (unintentionally) gain when we develop chronic health conditions.
My massage therapist and I joke that I fight crime in my sleep. It’s a much more fun explanation for why my muscles freak out (the real reason: fibromyalgia). We joke that this is why I have brain fog too—I’m so deep undercover that *I* don’t even know that I’m a secret super hero, so I must be getting my memory wiped every morning. Sounds legit.
This got me thinking that, hey, those of us in the spoonie community really do have our own set of superpowers. And no radioactive spiders are even required! (Thankfully, because I hate spiders…and as for radioactive—been there, done that!)
I hope you enjoy these tongue-in-cheek examples of our superpowers. Because in all seriousness, each of you are fighters to get through each day with chronic illness and chronic pain.
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Q&A with Kelly J. Aalseth “Living with Fibromyalgia has been a way for God to constantly remind me that he is my place of safety”
Kelly J. Aalseth recently published her first book! Congratulations Kelly! You can find her book “Keeper of Your Life: Actively Trusting Jesus Through Chronic Pain” on Amazon. This book focuses less on the medical side of chronic pain, and more on how to practically turn to Jesus in the midst of longsuffering.
She also runs the blog Behind Pained Faces about life and faith with fibromyalgia. I’ve been enjoying reading her insights, especially in this blog post: “On annoyingly happy people, jealousy, and real joy.”
I hope you’re encouraged by this conversation with Kelly on chronic illness, faith, and perseverance.
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My List of Little Joys
I want to try a new style of blog post, and would love to hear what you guys think of it!
I’ve been wanting to get back into gratitude journaling after an unintentional break, as well as just journaling in general. I used to write journal entries fairly regularly, but lately its been…every four months or so.
I noticed a funny trend when I’ve been writing in my gratitude journal lately—I’ve wanted to write something down that made me happy, but it made me feel silly to say I was GRATEFUL for it. So I thought I’d combine gratitude journaling with capturing moments that brought me joy.
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Q&A with Richelle Heacock: “Keep fighting! You never know when your breakthrough will come.”
Richelle Heacock runs a YouTube channel focused on awareness of disabilities, with an emphasis on spreading hope and love. Her video discussing viewer questions about how to interact with someone with a disability or someone who uses a wheelchair is very informative and insightful.
A car accident in 2010 left Richelle paralyzed, impacting her life and her identity as an athlete. Richelle worked as a volleyball coach for the first seven years following her accident, and is now focusing on her health and sharing her experiences and wisdom on YouTube.
I hope you’re encouraged by this conversation with Richelle on chronic illness, faith, and perseverance.
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Brain Fog Broke My Internal Editor
Fibromyalgia has impacted my ability as a writer, and I’m just starting to understand all the ways it has. I’ve been trying to express it for awhile, with the irony being that it takes way more effort now for me to express anything. Brain fog has made it extremely hard for me to objectively edit my work. It’s like the editing part of my brain is broken.
Blogging has been much harder than I thought it would be, for reasons I didn’t expect. I knew energy to write was going to be a challenge, in addition to fighting through brain fog to express myself. But I wasn’t expecting to have so much trouble evaluating the quality of my work.
I was given a great piece of advice
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To the Christian Who Feels Sad at Christmastime—Here’s What’s Helping Me
We’re getting real on the blog today.
I want talk about struggling with feelings of sadness around Christmas, something that can impact anyone, not only those of us with chronic illness.
In a way, this feels a bit like a taboo subject. I kind of worry about admitting to this struggle out of fear that people will think I’m not grateful for all Christmas represents (it is Jesus’ birthday after all!) or that my sadness means I somehow dislike Christmas (which certainly is not the case!)
I’ve struggled over the past several holiday seasons, and a lot of it has had to do with getting used to my limitations due to chronic illness. Christmas is one of my favorite holidays, so in addition to struggling with not feeling happy, I’m also struggling with not feeling quite like myself. My love for Christmas is a part of who I am, so this sadness is yet another way my chronic illnesses impact my identity.
And I think as Christians we can sometimes feel pressure to feel or act happy 24/7, so feeling sad this time of year adds another layer of complexity—I feel guilty about it!
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Q&A with Calina: “Arthritis can happen to young people, too.”
Calina is a dear friend of mine who is super tech savvy, loves video games, good movies, and practicing hospitality. We met in college at a Bible study hosted by a mutual friend. She took me to my first ComicCon several years ago, which was incredible!
Calina graciously agreed to be my guinea pig—I mean, my first interviewee on this blog!
It was a fun interviewing her and learning some new things about her (which is pretty awesome considering we’ve known each other over a decade!). I think you’ll be encouraged by her story—she has gone through osteoporosis, Crohn’s disease and arthritis plus some major injuries and surgeries, but her joy and humor is so life-giving and a beautiful testimony of what it looks like to trust God even when we don’t understand.
