I have been trying to come with a way to explain what I'm trying to achieve here. How I have tried to figure out what it means to have survived because of modern medicine, and yet to have been failed by modern medicine so completely in my healing process. How there have been too many procedures, needles, stark white operating room lights and cold tile floors, and not enough eye contact, kind words, and TIME. Not enough time spent putting the pieces of my being, back together. See, what most people don't know is that a traumatic experience, whether it be a car wreck, loss of a loved one, war experiences, a lost love, abuse, on and on and on...what most people don't know is that those instances may only take a second, or an hour or a day...but they can take a lifetime to heal if the pieces aren't gathered, and if the gatherer doesn't have the right tools.
I felt as though there was a great explosion that day. The day of my accident, the day my brother died, and a few other days... Like a silent scream that never ended, like watching a bullet shatter a glass bottle in slow motion; you can see every shard, every tiny crystalline bit as it explodes outward in every direction in an instant, and all you can do is watch in awe. This is how it feels. Like every piece of myself, my heart, my family, my work, my schooling, my soul, my body, my IDENTITY...I watched them all splinter and fall in slow motion, as I scrambled in real-time to scoop them back up and put them all back together again as fast as I could, as they cut my hands and made me bleed all over again, but I never stopped trying. And they just didn't ever fit the same, and they cut me from the inside, trying to fit and form to the way I am in this life now, and they don't, not always. I still feel like I'm bleeding, as I go about my days and smile and do my work, my play, my chores, my loves...I am bleeding, but not bled out. I am crying, but silently, and not every day. But here I am. And I will go on. And when a person is able to identify that, to face it in all of its raw pain and heartbreak, healing can begin. It can be years. When we can let the pieces fall, and we can look at them with love, with patience for our pain, and compassion for a fragile, beautiful LIFE, and we can gently, painstakingly and lovingly pick up each piece of that life and let them come together again as they will...healing does begin. Some people do this instantaneously; others, it takes longer. It's not a contest. There is no right or wrong, as long as there is healing.
It's hard to be patient with yourself when you've seen suffering much worse than your own, and you see people who just smile, day in and day out, acting as if things are fine, you think, "what do I have to complain about? Have you seen how bad _______'s got it??" ...but I know now, even those who appear so strong, so stoic and brave, even they cry into their pillows at night. Even those who would never dream of shedding a tear by daylight, I know the turmoil within you, and I send you love. This insidious sadness, the pain that eats away at your inner peace like a starving dog...all we have to do is throw that dog a fucking bone. Throw it a fucking bone. It's starving. We're ALL starving, for Love. The thing is, we keep looking to others to love us, to make it right, to smooth the rough edges and keep our "happiness bubble" intact. But it's never enough, we are still starving, because we are the only ones who can give that dog a bone.
That "bone" is many things. Forgiveness, kindness, compassion, grace, humor...we are forever fighting to pull ourselves out of the pit of despair, climbing desperately for the ledge and falling again. What if all we really need to do is FILL that pit? What if all we need is to look inward with love, instead of the constant vigil of outward bravery and strength? Why must we always convince ourselves and others that we have it all together, each hair and nail and brow perfectly made-up, tackling life in designer jeans and Ugg boots with our picture perfect family in frames all around? Anyone outside looking in could see how "together" we have it. Look INSIDE. Look at that void. Fill in that void with love, with kind self-talk. Not ego, not vanity, with self-LOVE. You know, the conversations we have in our heads, the words that we tell ourselves are true...make them kind. It sounds so simple and stupid...but what you are thinking really can be powerful enough to kill you. Be Love. It sounds so simple...and if you let it be just that, just Love, well, it truly is. And then we are able to be so much more loving and compassionate to those around us.
So, off of the soap box for a minute...I am writing this because I feel so strongly that I did not receive the care I so desperately needed, the kind of care that is left by the wayside in our modern world. We look at illness and injury and how can we fix it? What pill or treatment will work? Write a prescription and move onto the next puzzle. But that's the problem. The Western world has lost interest in the entire puzzle, and is focusing on just one piece; sickness. If we can make the symptoms disappear, we have success. Untruth. A human being is a million more things than mere illness. I remember going to physical therapy for months after my car accident, and I had massage therapy. I would lay on the table and tears would just stream down my face within seconds of the practitioner's touch. I'd apologize over and over again, while she'd tell me, "It's perfectly normal to have an emotional release during massage therapy, it's your muscles releasing memory of the trauma. It's ok. You're always ok." And I WAS always ok when I was there. I was in a safe place. I could cry, I could hurt, I could be weak, and I knew I was held up by strong and capable hands. I didn't feel that way anywhere else at that time, not at home, not at work, I was the caretaker in both of those places in a time when I so desperately needed care myself, and didn't realize it. My heart was utterly broken. During this time, I was trying to get back to full-time work, I was a full-time nursing student, mother of 5 plus 2 stepsons, and managing 3 different therapy modalities: occupational therapy, PTSD therapy, and physical therapy. I know you'll be shocked to learn that I would progress, then plateau. Progress, then re-injure myself. And, this was my pattern for 6 years. The doctors kept urging me to apply for social security, disability. Urging me to find a different line of work, because nursing would not be kind to my system after the injuries I had sustained. My heart was broken. Each time I would re-injure my unstable spine, a felt like a piece of me would die. Depression would creep in, deeper all the time. I felt I was a failure. I knew nothing else but nursing, it was all I'd ever done for work, what else could I do? I kept trying. My doctors and therapists kept after me and cared the best that they could within their scope of practice, but the truth was, I felt so beyond broken. I quit going to my doctors. I quit seeing a therapist about PTSD. I stayed home. I got up every morning, got my kids ready for school, hugged them up as they caught the bus...and I went back to bed and slept until noon. It didn't take too long to realize that this was not a healthy way to live, that I deserved better, and that I was not going to improve my health by ignoring it. I began reading about Paleolithic eating, tailoring meals to fit our bodies' needs, about nutrition and herbs and the biology behind our bodies and how we can heal by nourishing them properly, that our bodies are not meant to be sick, but that if we tune in to how they change and how we need to eat at each stage, age, and injury or illness, we can restore our bodies to health.
I began this new leg of my journey in January of this year, after nearly 2 years of research and trial and error and tears and failure and pain. And I'm glad to report, I am on my way to wellness, for the first time in nearly 8 years. And I'm going to tell you all about it!!!!!!!
