What I did this weekend to challenge myself -
I did something out of my comfort zone last night - I went to a friends' birthday dinner. She was encouraging about my coming, and ultimately I'm glad I did. If I hadn't I think I would have been upset with myself. There was one other person there whom I know, and she encouraged me to share bits of how my life is impacted by health challenges from which I am working on recovering.
So what were the challenges for me at this party? Food is a social thing - it's a focal point of gatherings, but I am on a very restricted diet. I'm grateful that my migraine condition can be controlled by elimination of food triggers - which means no meds - especially since I'm very sensitive to meds. However, this meant bringing my own food which for a situation like a party honestly feels a bit awkward. In addition, I have hypoglycemia which is also diet controlled. In addition to what I eat, I need to pay attention to when I eat. I've had this condition for many years, and it means I can't just eat whenever it's convenient. So when the food was delivered a bit late, I decided I needed to heat mine up and eat, which meant eating before everyone else, and then not eating when everyone else was. 
Neither of these things is what you would call a crisis, but given the fact that I am fundamentally more comfortable one-on-one than in groups, honestly again it's a bit awkward. If I'm going to be social it's the sort of thing I have to be prepared to do. Regarding my blood sugar it's much better to do what I did then it would be to opt to wait until everybody else was eating.
I made a point of sitting next to the one other woman whom I knew. She is a very gracious and kind human being, and I enjoyed and was grateful that I was able to handle a conversation with her. Listening to and trying not to pay attention to simultaneous conversations while I talk to one person can be a challenge for me.
There was a lot of conversation about autism, something which everyone there seemed to have some connection to. My connection regarding autism is to know people who have children with autism, and it was interesting listening to the conversation. I did find myself wondering a couple of times during the dinner conversation whether any of the women with whom I was sitting had any health challenges themselves. I've often wondered about the difference between having a child with some kind of challenge versus having one or more parents with health challenges. 
I felt uncertain about posing this question, so I didn't. I wasn't sure, among other things, if I wanted to talk about myself possibly in some detail, with a group of women I for the most part did not know. But it is something I think about quite a bit, and so I decided to write about and share the writing. I still consider myself to be in recovery because in both of my therapies (Feldenkrais and vision) I continue to make progress and don't consider myself to have gone so far as I can.
The thing is that while I am moving through my recovery I need to do things that an healthy person does because doing those things is what helps me make progress, and it is difficult even as an adult to put myself in those kinds of sometimes uncomfortable and challenging situations. But I know that I need to and I will keep on doing it. As I said in the beginning, I'm glad that I did go to the party, if for no other reason than because I can say that I did it, I made the effort, and sometimes just saying that you've done something when you're pushing towards recovery is really what counts.