Will Work for Coffee: Self-Care at Work

This is a post by Natalie Abbott on Still I Can't Be Silenced. 

Apparently I have an inordinate number of pictures of coffee on my phone. I also have a ton of photos of my dog, but that at least makes more sense than my strange compulsion to photograph my work coffee habit!

I am a firm believer in the power of caffeine to cure many of the ills of life, and especially the ills of trying to work with a chronic illness.

And I’m only saying this somewhat tongue-in-cheek.

I am a firm believer that caffeine is the best medicine ever. Yes, it’s a tad addictive and rather expensive (which is why I most definitely do not add up what I spend on my coffee habit!) but it’s often literally the only thing I can do in the morning to get myself up and going and feeling filled up. 

Iced coffee, drip coffee, espresso drinks… some combination of all of these is a big part of how I survive my full-time job with a chronic illness. 

I deal with a lot of pain from my neuromuscular disorder and fatigue from my autoimmune disorder so am always looking for ways to help myself in these ways. Some things I do are pretty self-explanatory: getting enough sleep is important! same with eating well and all that stuff.

But some other more novel things help, too: 

Enter: Cassius, service dog extraordinaire! I’ve been partnered with a service dog for three years now, and he helps me immensely with reducing pain, conserving energy, helping me navigate my commute, and providing an awesome distraction from my pain during the workday. He can happily pick things up for me when I drop them, offer counterbalance going up and down the many BART stairs I maneuver on a daily basis (because the elevators are slow and nasty. Bad combination!) and opening and closing doors, drawers and cabinets for me.

During my workday I try to take a decent number of breaks to either plop down in the breakroom or get outside and enjoy some fresh aid and to change up what I’m doing, luckily my job at a library really allows for doing a bunch of different things throughout the day. This helps me alternate what areas are less painful than others. It’s facetiously better to have many things hurt a little than to have one thing hurt too much!

Lastly, taking a bit of time for myself to decompress after and before work is vital – whether it’s reading (it’s quite nice to have access to thus ands of books all the time!) or playing ridiculous computer games (Frozen Free Fall, anyone?) or hanging out with puppies and horses on my hours and days off is vital to my sanity and health.

Working is important to me. It means that I’m contributing to society, making my mark in the workplace, and (every so often) changing people’s lives – and sometimes their perceptions of what people with disabilities can accomplish. I don’t necessarily focus on that, but I don’t argue with it when it happens!

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