Unless you live in a rock in a Pakistani cave where the wi-fi signal can't reach, you are well aware that there are a lot of indignant people this week. They're upset because Facebook made some significant changes to its format.
Some people stomped and screamed and threatened to move to Google Plus. I saw some of them later in the evening after they'd cooled off.
Some people just dealt with it.
The incident reminded me so much of my 3 1/2 year tenure as the Director of Dietary Services at an eating disorder treatment center. I was in charge of the menu, and more importantly to the 30-40 women with anorexia and bulimia I was feeding…the rules defining how they could interact with that food at the table. For the most part, other than the expected negotiations around foods like butter and dessert, things went smoothly and the rules were honored.
Except…and I'm telling you, I always had to hunker down and grit my teeth and drag myself to work on these days…we changed a menu item or a food rule. Those days, without fail, triggered the worst migraines I have ever had. I'd jokingly write up invoices for my boss for extra hazardous duty pay, since those days I'd sometimes even find notebooks and cans of Ensure flying millimeters from my ear from the direction of a dissatisfied patient. My staff kept a chalkboard in the back on which they took bets on how many petitions for special dispensations from the rules I would get…it was that bad. Humor was our main coping skill for working with such a high-maintenance population.
The degree of mutiny didn't correlate at all with the amount of change I introduced. I could simply be changing the order of who got their plate first, or I could be adding a new item to the menu. Anything that required adjustment to a new and different way of doing things, met with resistance.
Unlike Facebook, we did a LOT of proactive work, educating our population about what our changes would be, so they could be prepared. But I can tell you, even with the exhausting degree of communicating we provided our change-averse demographic…the mutinies occurred like clockwork.
So the other day, watching the reactions to the Facebook changes brought back a lot of flashbacks from my treatment center days. I have a pretty good idea how it felt to be working on the Facebook campus the last 48 hours.
I've been on Facebook for going on 3 years now. Long enough to know that this is the exact same thing that happens everytime they change. People stomp, scream, whine, complain…then they settle in and learn to use the new system. All is well until the next set of changes rolls out.
What does this have to do with PCOS? The moment you were given your diagnosis is a lot like the moment you logged on to Facebook and found that the old way of doing things was no longer pertinent. You were knocked out of your comfort zone. You were told that you were going to need to learn to do things differently.
How are you dealing with the new changes?
Are you investing most of your energy into fighting the change?
Or are you able to see the humor in the situation and work to learn a new (and maybe even better in a few ways, as I'm finding) way of doing things?
Consider that how you respond to events like the Facebook change may give you insight into how you deal with your PCOS. Learning to roll with, and accept change, can be a crucial part of your PCOS success. The unfortunate reality is, no matter how angry it makes you that you got the diagnosis, no matter how uncomfortable the changes you need to make may make you feel, if you don't eventually get on board, the world is going to progress without you.
I'd really hate to see you be left behind.