Fun fact–I studied child psychology in college. (And now I’m an entrepreneur who uses that psych background to coach my clients from crisis to crisis.)

I went to Sarah Lawrence College, a little liberal arts school that rejected silly things like majors or grades. Instead of taking tests, we wrote huge papers every semester on a topic of our choosing. And, the morbid little soul I am, I choose in one class to study grief in children. 

I’ve been thinking a lot about that paper this week. I spent months reviewing what we know about the psychology of grief, specifically the work of Elisabeth Kubler-Ross and the grief cycle she discovered. 

Denial. 

Anger. 

Bargaining.

Depression. 

Acceptance. 

As I was in my therapy appointment this week, I realized that every time I go through a flare, I cycle through each of these. 

I try to deny that I’m flaring and stubbornly insist on trying to “push through it”. 

I get pissed off that my body is failing me (yet again.) 

I start bargaining with my body that if it would only let me go to dinner with my family that I would stay in bed the rest of the weekend. 

And then I lay in bed for days, sad and lonely and in pain. 

Just when I’ve accepted where my body is and adapted my coping mechanisms to have the best quality of life I can, it all starts over again with another flare. 

Right now, I’m hovering between being angry and bargaining with my body. I have shit to do and no time to deal with terrible back pain and fatigue. But my body doesn’t care. 

While a flare makes everything hard, it impacts my business the most. I make silly mistakes and I’m grumpy with my clients. I struggle to put into words that I CAN get everything done but it’s not going to be pretty. I agonize over whether I should admit the flare to my clients or suffer in silence.

There will be moments when I stare at the blinking cursor of a document for longer than I’d care to admit because brain fog has taken over. The flare is found in the push to prop myself up in bed with my laptop to get a few hours of work in before I need to take another nap. But most of all, I find myself in a constant state of frustration with everyone and everything when it becomes hard to think through the pain. 

I don’t have any answers or solutions to this side of being a spooniepreneur. All I know is that it brought me some comfort this week that there’s a scientific reason I’m feeling this way…and hope that acceptance comes sooner rather than later.