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Living with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) can make it really hard to get anything done. In my new Made with RA column for HealthCentral, I talk about motivation and how to find it.

“I’m probably not alone in being fascinated with how the “normals” have dealt with COVID-19 isolation (similar in so many ways to life with chronic illness), struggling to find the motivation to get out of PJs and into a proper pair of pants. But when you have rheumatoid arthritis (RA), you’re not just battling existential ennui: You’re also fighting fatigue and pain that get in the way of something as basic as getting out of bed. How do you find the motivation to keep going when your get-up-and-go got up and went?

Let’s Talk Lack of Motivation

Truth time: It just took me four days to send a quick text to arrange for a repair of my wheelchair. I thought about it several times every day, but the mere thought of spending quite literally 23 seconds to text my tech had me curling up in a metaphorical fetal position. As a person with RA who is immunocompromised, I’m high-risk so I’m staying home.

My quarantine isn’t ending anytime soon, and it’s taking a toll on my mental health. Although it was sort of bearable when we were all in this together, it’s been depressing and discouraging to watch the rest of the world burst from their homes as restrictions begin to ease. The virus still isn’t gone. Not everyone is wearing masks. And so I still feel as if the only way I can stay safe is to remain in my one-bedroom apartment until there’s a vaccine.

I love my home, but not that much.

The only silver lining in this situation is that I recognize this struggle to find motivation. It’s been part of my life on and off, usually arriving on a tandem bike with a bad RA flare. It’s made up of part intense coping with something very hard, a dose of depression, and a dollop of despair. For weeks (or months) nothing gets done and when I come out of it, there is an inevitable struggle to catch up and clean up. But since I know the feeling and have been here before, I also know how to get out of it.

Read the rest of my column on how to get motivated with RA on HealthCentral.