"Two steps forward, one step back." Though my mother implanted this “negative” saying, today I’m thinking perhaps it’s not such a negative thing, perhaps it was just the way she said it. I mean technically speaking, you’re still advancing slowly and that’s sort of the way of healing. Because you see, I originally started writing this blog saying, “I’m doing much better.” I should have been more cautious of my exclamation, not in a superstitious way but as a reminder to be vigilant with the focus of healing, even when I’m feeling good, because the healing journey isn’t a destination, it’s a continuous commitment to health and healing. Being an extremely private, shy introvert, I dislike pity and and am only close to a couple people. I very much envy the people who can share their woes on social media and get allot of sympathy and acknowledgement, but it’s just not me. I envy those who have a circle of close people in their lives who ask them the important question, “How are you doing?”, or having a choice of people to call and talk about specific problems that each friend will be able to relate to in some way. So a large network of real social connections is a fantasy right now (as I dislike absolutes, particularly of the limiting sort). I’ve been an introvert my entire life and with age and (chronic) fatigue I rarely leave the house, unless I have to. Sometimes I get invited to socialize and sometimes I go, but socializing isn’t necessarily what an introvert desires or needs. We need deep connections and that’s not as easy to come by. Most of the time it takes allot of time and effort to formulate those connections and fortify bonds. It takes allot of energy. So then I have to decide where I’m going to spend my energy on. I’m hopeful my energy will continue to rise as my health improves. The point of all this isn’t to illicit sympathy or have people calling me out of the blue just because they feel like they should. Like most introverts I like my quiet life and appreciate the few people who are actually in it. The point of all this is to say that when it comes to health and healing, introversion is a problem. It can create illness and perpetuate it, if nothing is shared and everything is kept inside. This can be especially devastating to people with depressive issues. It is a viscous cycle in which the introvert tends to shut down and isolate themselves, just when they need people the most. Sometimes people take this to the opposite extreme, telling everyone every problem whether they ask to hear it or not and then become emotional vampires. There is also a some people who are empaths, who are highly susceptible to the energy around them, not unlike myself. Most empaths are introverts but some aren’t. It’s just a bit of a double whammy when a shy introvert is also an empath. So while you feel other people’s feelings you’re not necessarily good at sharing your own. If the empath is not good at shielding their personal bubble or if they are weakened with imbalance or disease, negative energy from other people or environment can have a negative impact on one’s health. It actually effects everyone but empaths are most sensitive to it. This is why I follow what Carlos Castaneda said, “No pity,” for myself or others. Not being able to open up is more than an introverted problem. It’s a masculine and a cultural issue as well. In fact, not being able to open up and share feelings is a a luxury and a privilege that people in 3rd world countries might not have. So, if you have something in your heart or on your mind, share it in the best way you know how, for the sake of your health. Words themselves are not always necessary if you can do anything creative: art, music, write…do it! That’s why I create the Facebook page "GG Cat - Artist.” I haven’t written for many months since I announced my greatest hinderance to my healing process, the denial and the acknowledgement of the state of my son, which was an integral part of the healing process. So it may have seemed after my last couple of blogs that I was at an all time low. Yet when we are at our lowest that’s when we can accomplish our greatest healing: pulling weeds, finding our way through the forest, finding pieces of ourself that may have been lost long ago, finding new pieces to ourself that were never known before, planting seeds, tilling the soil and waiting for the sun so that you may rise again a new, better and healthier person. People may be curios about my son. Yet this blog isn’t about him. It’s not even about my life, per say, just my healing. It’s meant to show people how to heal, what it takes and that it can be done. As for my son, I began writing a blog about my journey with his addiction, but I took it down for a couple reasons, one because if you don’t have an addicted child there’s no way to understand and no one really wants to know. It’s foreign and dark and pushes the edges of comfort. Also, I questioned it’s overall benefit to myself, in that I ask myself if I’m continuously recreating a darker story by identifying with it or if I would better serve myself in the healing process with my son by focusing on how I can make improvements. I chose the latter. There’s nothing wrong with the former and I applaud any parent that gets it out there in any way they need to. I have written some of it in a journal and perhaps one day before I die I’ll actually write a book, about something. One way I believe I’m getting better is that in the past when someone would ask me how I’m doing I’d sometimes just point to my blog because the magnitude of that question deserved honesty beyond, “OK” or “Could be better...” where I felt that my whole life was my healing journey. While that may always be an integral part of my life. It’s not my whole life. It’s not who I am, it’s just a big part of how I live my life’s path. Now I find I have a little time to enjoy life’s simple pleasures and at times I find morsels of motivation to do more. Healing takes a long time, sometimes a very long time, but it’s worth the effort. By the time most people acknowledge a problem it’s serious and by that time it’s the healing journey or the darker path. Yet you don’t have to wait. Preventative medicine is not just about nutrition and supplements. It’s also about make good life choices and avoiding contributing behaviors to include consistent thought patterns and emotional or psychological imbalances or avoidance. Face yourself fiercely and go tell someone how you feel, even if it’s just to say, “I love you.” *I’ll be leaving to New Zealand in a couple weeks. Hopefully I’ll have a pre-trip blog before I go, but if not, I’ll definitely have one after. Stay tuned! Be healthy - enjoy the day! :)
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It was perhaps a month ago that I dared to think, "I might be OK now." I had felt good for so long I was beginning to see what I thought was the light at the end of the tunnel.
My sleep was never completely stable at night but I was able to make up for it regularly with daily naps and my energy level had risen to what I consider a "respectable constant." It was high enough to not adversely affect my mood, nor my daily routine around the house. I felt like I was actually healing, but then...relapse. All it took was one weekend when I had my period and I didn't sleep for two days straight. Then I could no longer access my nap time and a weekend turned into a week. The full moon shortly followed. If you have insomnia or if you're sensitive to the moon then you know what I'm talking about. It is a rare occasion that I can sleep during a full moon. A week turned into two weeks and then my immune system crashed and just like that I was knocked down again. How naive was I to think I was "all better." Whatever. Yet with the goings on with my troubled child it is a wonder if I can ever sleep really. If you read my last blog entry you know that of which I speak. I won't go into detail here, as this is not the place for that, though they are intimately connected. If you want to hear more about that you can read my other BLOG. Though I cannot ensure the same diligence to positivity or inspiration that I try to maintain here. Despite my disappointment in relapsing, the recovery seem slightly easier. Although, I do have to work double time to reinforce my immune system. I regularly take great consideration of my immune system. Since at this stage being sick is too rough on my body, I go out of my way to keep my immune system tip top, including: whatever sleep I can muster, avoiding drugs and alcohol, relaxation to combat stress, regular exercise, regular hand washing and supplements such as garlic, Astragalus and Vitamin C. While there are some who rarely get sick, there are others of us who have to stay ever vigilant. When my immune system is compromised I generally turn to Elderberry and when it has crashed, I have found that sometimes colloidal silver helps. Immunity is somewhat of a concern for everyone who has insomnia, considering our body needs sleep to stay healthy, fight disease and repair itself. My caffeine consumption these days generally consists of one cup of coffee and a cup of green tea. Although, since my relapse Iv'e been desperately trying to wean off coffee all together, in that anything that could help would be welcome. Of course it's ridiculous to think that one cup of coffee would cause insomnia but getting off it sure can't hurt, unless you go cold turkey. One should never go cold-turkey off caffeine; always wean slowly. Though I do not have a doctor's diagnosis, I believe the biological component of my insomnia is hormonal. While I don't discount that there could be a doctor that could help, the medical system is too pathetic to get one without spending thousands of dollars to find the right one who listens to you, gives you the right test at the right time and knows what to look for and so on. This is considering I went to a doctor for years and all I got was sicker with medication. I will say that I have yet to go to a naturopath and perhaps one day, being financially able, I will. Till then I will continue to heal myself to the best of my ability. I do have a couple years of Acupuncture schooling, which is more than a chiropractor or another weekend workshop dry needler, if only I did it more. Since I have been off the medication for almost a year and a half I am now able to occasionally utilize natural sleep supplements, although they still don't work if the insomnia is severe, like a couple weeks ago. When a person on a Healing Journey begins to feel better the tendency is to put all your troubles behind you, forget about all your problems and start a fresh new life with energy and without pain. More than anything we want to let it go and move beyond our constant state of suffering. Doesn't that sound nice? Yet, a Healing Journey is a lifetime path. Therefore, you can put it behind you but only if you put in the work to do so. Reality isn't always pleasant but with hard work we can make our days enjoyable and meaningful. After all, this is Earth School. Where does that leave me? Besides recovering from the last episode of severe insomnia, the lesson here is to prevent future ones. Or if that's not yet possible, continue to build myself up so recovery is easier with future incidents. I used to be a person who would create a better reality for herself with her positive thoughts and yet where that potential never leaves us and should not be abandoned, it's healthy to accept that chronic illness cannot be cured by positive thought alone, particularly if it keeps us from putting in the physical work to make our thoughts and dreams a reality. OMG - I think I might be growing up! .There comes a point for each person who suffers a chronic condition on the path of healing, in which one reaches a crossroads between “reality” and “illusion”. I put both words in quotes because both are relative and changeable, but when your reality bumps heads with another person’s reality it’s up to you to decide which is most accurate. Unfortunately, we only have the power to change our own reality, not someone else’s. Many empaths find themselves in these positions, figuring out where the line is between yourself and another person. If your happiness depends on another person, you’ll always fall short. It sounds easy enough not to do and yet we are all susceptible to the human condition, which can include attachment. Some people would die without their significant other, but they would never admit it. Others would say they would never allow themselves to stoop to that level. Though realistically, for most people there is at least one person that would make them want to die, if something terrible were to happen to them. If you are a parent, then you understand. How does one enjoy their life when others suffer? If others are starving, how can we eat? How can we be happy if others are sad? Perhaps it is easy if we don’t know the person but if that person is your life-line… How does one take care of themselves if the person they love does not take care of them-self? If you knew they were suffering and homeless and without food, how would you enjoy food and shelter and and enjoy life when they are not? How would you want to live if they do not? Each person on the long healing road will come to this crossroads of a “truth” they can no longer avoid. A “truth” that has been making them sick. Or perhaps it’s a series of little avoidances that has created a huge problem. A “truth” that has kept them from the healing process, creating blocks in the meridians, imbalance, dis-ease, chaos, havoc, tumors, pain… due to a “truth” so hidden from our psyche that our ego thinks it would be better to die than to face. But we must. It’s been about a year since I quit my job. It wasn’t just me who thought, “When I no longer have to work, everything will be OK.” Everyone who knows me thought that. Everyone thought that was the solution to making me better, so I could finally get my long needed rest. That might have been the sole answer if I were able to do that years ago, before years of medication and burning myself out to nothing. But don’t get me wrong, healing would be much more challenging without this opportunity. I know not everyone can do this and though it could help anyone in a chronically ill situation, the link between karma and dharma is of great consideration. Understandably, those concepts are too vast for this blog but suffice to say, my work was intertwined between the web of karma and dharma, to help create my descent. If I did not have this opportunity to quit my job, it would be up to me to find work that did not hurt my body or my soul. The work system does not make allowances for sensitive souls. So just "suck it up", till your job kills you and the "strong shall prevail", etc. This is the nature of spiritual evolution. It takes us all working together and it’s up to us “sensitive souls” to show that we belong here also and make a place for ourselves. Likewise, it’s been about a year since I got off the medication and also I thought, “When I get off the medication, I can begin to heal.” Once again, this proved to be somewhat inaccurate. Merely stopping the medication did not initiate healing unto itself. Instead, stopping the medication allowed me to stop exacerbating the problem by killing me slowly with side-effects that numbed my mind and kept me always unconscious to the pains of life. Yes there is the medical foundation that it was temporarily keeping me alive and allowing me to work but at what cost? When we take medications we take care of the symptoms of the illness, which tricks our minds into thinking there is(are) no problem(s) and allows the us to continue blindly till we get something debilitating or die. Stopping the medication did enable me to heal though, in that it stopped masking tons of shit that has been avoided so that it has to be dealt with and allow healing to take place. Also, doing all the things I do to help myself heal would not work if I were taking medication, such as vitamins, herbs, acupuncture, exercise, etc. This all proves that work wasn’t the “cause”, the medication wasn’t the “cause”, they were merely a distraction, more efforts of avoidance that nearly killed me, snuffing out my qi(chi/life essence). If you stay on the healing path long enough you will reach at least one major crossroad. Here I am. I’ve been avoiding something for many years. After I was done avoiding the truth, I hid the truth from the world and suffered in silence due to shame for many many years as it has destroyed my health and my sanity. The truth is, my son is a meth addict and he is living on the street and there’s nothing I can do. The only thing I can do is learn to live my life for myself and now I’m no longer suffering in silence. "Crossroads" - Creme
I went down to the crossroads, fell down on my knees. Down to the crossroads, fell down on my knees. Asked the Lord above for mercy, "Save me if you please." I went down to the crossroads, tried to flag a ride. Down to the crossroads, tried to flag a ride. Nobody seemed to know me, everybody passed me by. Well I'm going down to Rosedale, take my rider by my side. Going down to Rosedale, take my rider by my side. You can still barrelhouse, baby, on the riverside. Going down to Rosedale, take my rider by my side. Going down to Rosedale, take my rider by my side. You can still barrelhouse, baby, on the riverside. You can run, you can run, tell my friend-boy, Willie Brown.* Run, you can run, tell my friend-boy, Willie Brown.* And I'm staying at the crossroads, believe I'm sinking down. I went down to the crossroad, fell down on my knees I went down to the crossroad, fell down on my knees Asked the Lord above "Have mercy, save poor Bob, if you please." Mmmmm, standin' at the crossroad, I tried to flag a ride Standin' at the crossroad, I tried to flag a ride Didn't nobody seem to know me, everybody pass me by Mmm, the sun goin' down, boy, dark gon' catch me here oooo, ooee, eee boy, dark gon' catch me here I haven't got no lovin' sweet woman that love and feel my care You can run, you can run, tell my friend-boy, Willie Brown. You can run, tell my friend-boy, Willie Brown. Lord, that I'm standin' at the crossroad, babe, I believe I'm sinking down. What is the KEY to dealing with a chronic condition? Ideally one should prevent any condition from becoming chronic, but unfortunately most people can't or won’t see the seriousness of it till it is severe. Yes, an ounce of prevention really is worth at least a pound of cure, perhaps years. Preventative medicine FTW! So if you’re reading this and you don’t have a chronic condition, good for you! Keep in balance: eat well, sleep well, exercise, meditate, do yoga, etc., and you’ll likely have good health for a long while. But for those of us with chronic conditions, it’s going to take a BIT more effort. Illness begins with a disharmony of mind, body, heart or spirit; when we get off track or when we avoid our True course. If you’ve gotten so far off track that you don’t know your way back, do not despair, for you’ve not really gotten off track, you’ve only opted for the long way home. If you’re ready to make the journey back, then the ask yourself, “What is the shortest distance between two points?” In other words, where did the disharmony begin? To this day I dread telling people about my problem. I mean what problem? Which problem? I’ve grown tired of people not understanding and just looking upon me with confused pity, so when I try to explain my situation I just summarize it to “my sleep problem,” which is how it manifested. Yet to this day, people still try to give me advice about sleeping. This is well intentioned but then I try to explain to them, “It’s not really about SLEEP.” I mean if I have a corruption of the soul, you can’t really cure that with Chamomile tea or warm milk. So while I’ve made s few strides and my sleep has somewhat improved, the days I don’t sleep take just as much of toll on me as when I didn’t sleep every night. Without understanding the spiritual component, there is no way to understand chronic disease and that’s more than surface conversation. So knowing that the reality of the topic is generally too broad for conversation and most people have little spiritual understanding, I try to stay within the scope of physicality and biology and so I say, “It’s not really about SLEEP anymore. That’s more of the cause than the effect. It’s way beyond that at this point. Now I’m dealing with the long-term effects of not sleeping for many many many years (or being untrue to myself for as many years)." So at this point, healing my sleep won’t cure the problem, as if there’s just one. Modern medicine doesn’t address this. Their cure was sleeping pills. They don’t know how to begin to grasp the complexity of this, despite the fact that elderly folks tend to have more energy and more of a life than I do. Despite the living in hell, the pain of lack of energy so deeply that it feels like you’re barely alive. Despite my complete inability to function in society as a productive person and don’t bother trying to get disability for anything like this, it’s not covered. When I did try, the lady in charge asked me why I wasn’t taking more sleeping medicine, as if sleeping medicine were a cure, as if it wasn’t killing me and destroying my faculties. It will suffice to the general public to refer to my original problem, which has brought on and been complicated by chronic fatigue and adrenal fatigue, which sounds so arbitrary and narcissistically grandiose, considering all the fatal chronic conditions such as cancer or some other painfully terminal illness. But don’t you see, that’s the next step. This is an intervention. It’s the step after prevention and before hospice. I’m in the fight for my life. Not to belittle the efforts of those with cancer or the like, for this blog is for you. This blog is for all of us who are in the fight of our lives. The reality is, I don’t have insurance so I don’t have traditional health care. (The reasons why are too political for my taste and pity stories bore me, so I’ll spare you.) So I don’t know if I have cancer or something worse not mentioned. When I told my physician before I quit my job, that I literally felt like I was dying, I was sent to a specialist and a radiologist to assess the possibility of such. Yet true to the medical system, the means did not serve the end and would be a long drudgerous journey that would take months, years, time, energy and money that I don’t have, not to mention a lymph node or so. So that leaves my health care where it belongs, in my hands and I chose not to have cancer. In that frame of mind, it’s never too late for preventative medicine, but in the advanced stages of chronic illness you need to take that mind-set and step it way the heck up. This is my journey back to health. It’s not to belittle whatever anyone has to do for their own health journey but to show all of us on a healing path, that there is a way back home. So you think you're a Romeo
Playing a part in a picture-show Take the long way home Take the long way home 'Cause you're the joke of the neighborhood Why should you care if you're feeling good Take the long way home Take the long way home But there are times that you feel you're part of the scenery All the greenery is comin' down, boy And then your wife seems to think you're part of the furniture Oh, it's peculiar, she used to be so nice When lonely days turn to lonely nights You take a trip to the city lights And take the long way home Take the long way home You never see what you want to see Forever playing to the gallery You take the long way home Take the long way home And when you're up on the stage, it's so unbelievable, Oh unforgettable, how they adore you, But then your wife seems to think you're losing your sanity, Oh, calamity, is there no way out, oh yeah Ooh, take it, take it out Take it, take it out Oh yeah Does it feel that your life's become a catastrophe? Oh, it has to be for you to grow, boy When you look through the years and see what you could have been Oh, what you might have been, If you'd had more time So, when the day comes to settle down, Who's to blame if you're not around? You took the long way home You took the long way home Took the long way home You took the long way home You took the long way home, so long You took the long way home You took the long way home, uh yeah You took the long way home Long way home Long way home Long way home Long way home Long way home Long way home -Richard Davies, Roger Hodgson (Supertramp) The healing journey is very much spiritual, mental and emotional, as well as physical. I moved to Arizona to be close to the red rocks in Sedona. While the town is a bit of a jumbling, trifle disappointment with it's tourism industry, the red mountains remain true to their nature, healing and transformative. I went to Sedona a couple weeks ago on vacation with my boyfriend, who took me kicking and screaming and forced me to "have a good time." Just kidding, but it did take him a year to get me there since I wanted to feel better the next time I went, but really felt worse. At one time Sedona actually meant something to me. Heck, things used to mean something. But now, I've been a void for a long time. Though people see my lack of energy and perhaps think I'm not an intrinsically happy person, the darkness within me is incomprehensible. There is no way most people could imagine how far down the rabbit hole I have been, the things I've seen, the monsters I've faced, the things that swim below, etc. The week before I left for Sedona I felt terrible, with my overall deficiency condition. In Chinese medicine a deficiency condition is when the body doesn't have enough qi(energy) or of certain type of qi, causing the body to shut down and try to maintain it's reserves. So we don't sleep but need to get through the day and/or we are low on energy or we get run down and then what? We keep going of course! Because this is America. You're not allowed to rest or take the time you need to be completely healthy without losing your job or having your family go without food, so you go on. You drink a little tea and the tea turns into coffee and the coffee turns into two cups and then three cups and then you have to go to something harder. Energy drinks were my drug of choice for a long time. Then you build up a tolerance and some people might go to something even harder, till your body burns out. Then what do you do? You keep going, and that's how you end up like me - disabled with chronic fatigue and exhausted adrenals and who knows what else. Some days, many days, I feel like I'm literally dying. This is how I felt before going to Sedona. But I agreed to go and I wanted to have a good time so I thought, "If I'm going to die, this would be a great last hurrah." So I gave this "having a good time" thing my all and my boyfriend made it easy and special, which really helped. While there, I found myself looking for something. I wasn't sure what I was looking for, something to help my on my healing journey perhaps. So where does one go when they are in Sedona and they are looking for answers? A psychic of course! I dragged my boyfriend, who doesn't "believe in that stuff" to a "psychic" and the woman had zero psychic ability. She gave us a couples reading. It was cute and interesting. She is probably intuitive and possibly a good reader but... I was looking for a psychic. Then I thought, maybe I'm not looking for a psychic. Maybe I'm looking for a healer. So I asked the woman if she knew of any healers and she said she was a healer and does chakra healing. SIGH. I mean, not that she's not a healer but chakra balancers are a dime a dozen. I wanted a "real" healer, a shaman. The following day I looked for a psychic with actual psychic ability and found a place that said they do psychic readings. So I asked the woman at the counter if the reader was actually psychic or just intuitive and she said both. So I sat with the "psychic" reader and she asked me, "What would you like to know?" "Well," I said, "yesterday I went to a reader but she wasn't psychic so I just want to know what a psychic has to say." She nodded as if she knew exactly what I was saying. She proceeded to tell me a bunch of stuff. I left feeling disappointed that once again I had failed my quest to find a "real" psychic. But I ruminated on her reading for days to come and realized she may have touched on a couple things. She saw that whatever I was going through was a HUGE transformation and that I have to trust in the process. I didn't say anything, that I was going through anything or give her any clues. Except when when she started saying my creative exploits would provide a way out, but then asked me what my passion is and I said, "nothing." She nodded knowingly. She told me that I have to have faith that the Universe is transforming me into something better and that a new purpose will be shown to me. I thought, "Where do I find this faith?" I guess there were allot of things I could have said during the reading but I didn't want it to be led by my verbal cues. So, she may be psychic but I wanted someone with even more psychic ability. I guess I was looking for a psychic to look at me and say, "WOW, you're a volcano of a dark void beyond any balance known to humankind who requires immediate, emergency healing on a psycho-tomic level, caused by this, this and this and I know an ancient healer who can help you." Is that so difficult??????????? After this reading, upon realizing that this is what I was looking for I gave up my psychic quest and instead of having a third reading the following day, I had a massage, which is probably the most healing experience I had in Sedona. I did end up ruminating on my last reading and thought about what she said about a "new purpose." Then I thought, "that's really the crux of my healing journey," I don't feel like I have any real reason to be alive. Without the desire to live, the body just shuts down. With nothing to fight for, we don't. We need a reason to exist. So then sometime between getting the reading and getting the massage I thought, "I want to live." It's not "I want to live!," with an exclamation point or even that I have a purpose. But for now, reminding myself that I want to be here is enough. The following week upon my return home I felt renewed with more energy than I'd felt in a while. So much so that I've even had the energy to pursue other steps on my healing journey that I've been wanting to take. Today, I saw the Chinese medicine herbalist, finally! Hope is renewed and maybe at some point, I'll find the faith I lost. Healing begins and ends with the mind.
Have you ever woken up and thought, "I've been carrying around 20 years of garbage?" Well I had that thought today. But knowing something is only half the battle. It would be a much better thought to wake up and say, "I know everything I need to do to be perfectly healthy!" So that's what I will say. Three months after quitting my job and stopping the medication, resting and working on my health, I finally started feeling better, but then I had a setback and regressed quite a bit. My mother would always say, "Two steps forward, one step back." How's that for negative reinforcement? Right now my energy level is about the level of someone over 80 or 90 years old. The days I feel very bad make me sad and make me want to feel sorry for myself. Especially after feeling better and more hopeful, it feels like more of a letdown and leads way to hopeless thoughts. This is especially an issue when I can't visit family and friends and do fun social things that everyone else my age does. It's gotten to the point in which I don't have enough energy to drive anywhere or even do small things around the house. It makes me feel bad when I can't physically go visit my son when I would like to. I worry that he thinks I don't want to see him. The thing that was making me better is regular naps, a.k.a. - "second sleep", but I'm not sure exactly what happened. I think perhaps I may have overdid it hiking one day and then driving around for a couple days and then having my period (being anemic or heart blood deficient) and tons of stress and missing second sleep for a couple days, etc. The doctors have said for awhile that they think my problems may be coming from my thyroid. I'm sure there are many things going on: thyroid and hormonal imbalance and adrenal fatigue, etc., but not anything detectable by Western medicine. My doctor said last year that she thought my problems are coming from my thyroid and they may be but she also said she thinks I could have Hashimoto's thyroiditis but that she needs to check future labs to make sure. Now I don't believe in pharmaceuticals but when you feel like you're dying, you're really in a desperate place, at your last resort, which is how I came to take the sleep medication in the first place. So while I don't want to start the cycle of taking pharmaceuticals all over again I was resigned to do anything to feel better. So I went back to my doctor this past week to follow up on new labs and according to the labs I'm perfectly fine and "Everything looks good." So the doctor said, "Do you have any other concerns?" "Well," I said, "I still feel terrible and I still feel like I'm dying." "Did you ever have that thyroid biopsy?" "No, because they said the nodule wasn't big enough for that." "Well we should have that ultrasound updated because I think it's coming from your thyroid." So anyway, another waste of money on another doctor visit. I was actually looking forward to taking the medication and finding the source of all my problems and not feeling like I was dying. The main thing they look for in a thyroid biopsy is cancer but that's a little extreme to jump to that. So I've decided to put my time, energy and money towards natural means, such as a Naturopathic doctor. Even though I should have enough knowledge at this point to treat myself through acupuncture, nutrition, supplementation and energy movement, my condition has temporarily weakened me to the point where I need help from other people who are more established in their knowledge of healing. I've had natural medicine friends who have helped me, but my condition has gone on so long that I'm going to need to do something even more than I could on my own. I started getting regular acupuncture treatments from Nicole at Yin Rising Acupuncture, even though I could technically treat myself, it takes energy to create energy and/or facilitate healing, energy I don't yet have. So while I have been advised to get Chinese herbal treatment along with acupuncture, I need to have enough energy to drive to the appointment. Ultimately though, healing begins and ends with the mind. The psychological battle one faces with their health is at the core of the healing process. Even when my energy level is at 1 percent, I still know my thoughts, feelings and attitude can make me better or worse. So if you have a chronic illness or even if you don't, it's important to cultivate a general Attitude of Gratitude and this can prevent further downfall and can create future healing. I am grateful for my friends and family who understand my issues. I am grateful for my friends who visit me. I am grateful for my son who continues to do well. I am thankful to Maria, my friend the naturopath, who has given me advice, supported me and supplied me with resources. I am grateful to Eric, alternative health researcher and vitamin representative, who has also given me good advice and leads to explore and vitamins. I am thankful for Nicole, who has been treating me with Acupuncture the past month and most of all I'm thankful to my boyfriend who makes life livable. What are you grateful for? Perhaps it was naive to think I'd be instantly better, or at least better by now. I see now that it's going to take a long time to get to the health level I want to be at. People ask me how great I feel not having to work anymore, but while I'm extremely grateful, I really don't feel good enough to enjoy it...yet. I still feel really bad about 4 out of 7 days of the week. But on the up side, that does mean I average about 3 good days a week. So I may be getting better, even if I don't really notice it. I've definitely taken the first steps. It’s amazing how many health issues emerge after getting off the medication: bladder issues, gynocolgical issues, decreased immune system, overall pain... I’m not even sure at this point what influence the medication had over these things but not sleeping intensifies everything and your body doesn’t heal if it doesn’t sleep. One thing of particular note is that I don't have any energy for anyone else. I don't call my family, I don't write and forget about driving. I don't go out with my friends, I don't visit my son or the cat. I'm sure some of them have had their feelings hurt at some point but I hope no one takes it personally. Many changes have begun. First, I stopped using anti-perspirant due to the possibility of aluminum toxicity and/or at the very least, depriving my body of the natural way it expells toxins. Yes I sweat allot and yes I have body oder and those are natural consequences I can live with, considering my body is a toxic wasteland that needs purging. Thus begins my journey of detoxification. Over the past year, I've aged twice as fast as I normally do. This includes some type of "age spots" under my eyes. According to Chinese Medicine, under the eyes is the area for the kidney, which makes sense that I need allot of detoxification. It's been approximately one month that I've left my job, been off the medication and have been detoxifying myself and the coloration of the dark spots under my eyes has already decreased by half. www.sacredlotus.com/go/diagnosis-chinese-medicine/get/4-pillars-looking-tcm-diagnosis So far my detoxification regimen consists of water, apple cider vinegar and Daily Detox tea. I cut sugar and artificial foods and processed foods out long ago. I know it's time to step it up a notch. My friend Eric recommends a macrobiotic diet and the Gerson detox diet. I'm mulling it over since I haven't decided what would be best for me yet. I found that the macrobiotic diet is mostly vegetarian, where I have to eat red meat sometimes due to my anemia and supplementation is not enough. Just over a week ago I barely had energy to talk and I felt like I was dying and needed to be in the hospital and didn't know what was going on and then the next day I had my period and I realized my body was using all my iron and so I had to increase my iron intake and meat for the week. Cutting out meat is not something my body can handle at this point but changing the diet is on my radar. I've completed Phase 1 (aka - getting of the medication), re-establishing my neurotransmitters with the supplements my naturopathic friend, Maria, helped me get. It was worth it. It helped me get through the most difficult part. This article talks about sleeping pill addiction. I don't really consider it a psychological addiction for myself, when your body needs to sleep but whatever, the result is the same. www.addictioncenter.com/sleeping-pills/withdrawal-detox/ The biggest change I've made since getting off the sleep medication is quitting the harsher caffienes. I was drinking coffee but then my body seemed to resist it and I couldn't drink it for awhile. Then I switched to organic Rockstars, which my body seemed to tolerate easier but then I began to notice that I could barely drink one without feeling like my heart was strained and my body was having great difficulty assmilating it. Now those are addicting. Caffiene is my drug of choice. So I stopped the Rockstars, eventhough the organic ones with real sugar are more tolerable and went back to coffee, but had to start adding sweetener to it. NOW, I've weaned myself down to tea! It will be black tea for a while. Here is an article to help someone get off sleep medication. It's a bit simple and probably not for someone whose insomnia is so severe but still important notes: www.wikihow.com/Break-Away-from-Sleeping-Medication Right now I average about 6 hours a night. I'm the type of person who needs a minimum of 8. An 8 hour night seems far away right now. I'm not even sure what my body is doing about sleep. I go to bed at night, still waking repeatedley, with a lighter sleep and then get up, at least once, by 8 am, then to take my morning nap or as I like to call it, "second sleep", where upon I get my real sleep. It's during the hours of 8 - 12 (not the entire time of course) that I get the best sleep. That's the sleep I was missing when I was working because I didn't have time for second sleep, hence the use of medication for a more continuous deeper sleep. Dear Body, what the heck are you doing? According to Astrology, the time for intensified purging is approaching. So perhaps, I can utilize that to accelerate the healing process. The pre-shadow of Mercury Retrograde is upon us. Be well. gostica.com/astrology/full-moon-in-gemini-on-december-13-a-spiritual-perspective/ www.aeprilsastrology.com On my last night before my last day of work I used the last of my sleep medication. I've only been working towards changing my life via career path for the last 20 years. So on my last day of work, someone who doesn't have insomnia might think that would be a glorious day, but alas due to anticipation and a heralding dream, I did NOT sleep despite taking the medicine and my day was very bad. Sigh, at least it's over, really over. It was one of those days that I shouldn't have been at work but I told my friend at work that I'd be there to say goodbye no matter what. The first day after my first night off the medication I slept approximately 2 hours. After laying in bed awake all night I got up to play on the computer, when a friend asked me, "Why are you up so early? The usual?" "Well, no medicine = no sleep." "Oh and that's for good now right?" "That's the plan." People tend to ask me if I believe in luck or destiny. Generally, I don't think one excludes the other but karma and dharma or more precise. So when things finally started falling into place after years off track, I found the universe was there after all. It's like that quote from Ralph Waldo Emerson, "Once you make a decision, the universe conspires to make it happen." I definitely hit bottom and felt sure I was dying, when Superman walked into my life. I found love at my lowest point and he lifted me up and saved me. It's amazing what can happen when you go to that place where nothing lives. When you finally admit that you can't keep going in the direction you've been going and you have no choice but to change or die. Then when you decide to change, sometimes you find that people are there to help you and that everything is actually going to be OK, despite the world falling to pieces around you. Due to my physical state I was forced to not care for my son anymore and his father took over, which he didn't have to since he is technically an adult. So I'm very grateful for his father taking up the reins. It's all very complicated and too personal for an internet blog to go into greater detail. When I felt forced to let go of my son, I also had to let go of our cat, who was my best friend, because technically she is his cat. I fell into a depression for a couple months after this but now I'm ready to move on and am ready for a new cat. I went to animal shelter to look for a cat but didn't feel a connection to any of them. Then I remembered that a friend from work had a cat she wanted to give me a couple years ago, which I couldn't take at the time because Kitty is very aggressive and territorial towards other cats. Now since I've remembered the little black kitty girl, I've been thinking about her and my friend from work says she still has her for me. Another friend who is a naturopathic doctor recommended a box of supplements that they sell at the practice she works at, which helps people in my type of situation get their neurotransmitters back on track and helps ease them through the transition. I bought the box and have been off the medication three days now and have had three sleepless nights. So far it sucks and I think it's going to get worse before it gets better but the most important thing is I'm not alone. Much love. October 31 was a most appropriate day to commence my reckoning. It's the time of Death and therefore Rebirth. This would be the day I quit my job, or more accurately put in my two-weeks notice. That's right, this is the beginning of the end and a step long overdue, but not by days or weeks, or months, more like years or lifetimes. Now is the time when my Karma finally starts catching up with my Dharma.
After I made sure my son and the cat were taken care of I held on due to the fear of losing my health insurance. It's all sort of the chicken and egg phenomena. Most people believe that there is a cause for my insomnia and therefor a cure and they are not "wrong" per se, but what most people considered a "cure" was actually a cause. For example, now that my insomnia has gone on for so many years, with increasing severity, I am exhibiting signs of many other problems such as nodules in my thyroid and lymph nodes, adrenal fatigue, and all the other obvious sign of accelerated decline, associated with age and never sleeping. So now I exhibit all the signs of hypothyroidism, including lack of sleep, with the possibility of hashimotos and/or possibly something even more serious. The pain has always been in my lymph node and not my thyroid but my doctor was very concerned about the nodules spreading to my lymph nodes and felt that it was very important to rule out cancer. She sent me to a specialist who determined that the first step of deciphering what was going on was to test the thyroid. So I set up a biopsy for my thyroid a couple months ago but on the day before surgery I developed a horrible bladder infection, where I had to urinate every 5 minutes. Since I was supposed to lay perfectly still on the table for an hour, I had to reschedule. I then waited another month for my new appointment. Everything was set, or so they said. Yet on the morning of the procedure they called me and told me they could not do a biopsy because the radiologist "just" looked at my images and my nodules weren't big enough to biopsy, after all these months of waiting. It's actually been years where I've been waiting to find out, what's wrong with me and how I can fix it. What do I do now? Not that I have much choice since I barely have enough energy to work one day a week at this point. But still, if one were to think logically, one might say, that if I were to quit my job I could get much worse or die because I don't have any health insurance to deal with it. But what if I told you, (Morpheus voice) it actually was the corporate rat race making me sick? How does one rectify the cost of a cure with the cause of the disease? My plan was that if it was something serious, I would stay at my job to take care of it with my health insurance but when my biopsy was cancelled for the second time, I wasn't about to wait for a third sign. And yes I took it as a sign and no people who follow "signs" aren't stupid, they are actually listening to what the Universe is trying to tell them and THAT IS THE WHOLE FUCKING POINT! If we listened to the Universe we wouldn't get sick. So my blatant disregard for Universal knowledge and flying in the face of imbalance stops now! Many may disagree with my decision but this is between me and the Universe and I'm choosing to listen to the Universe, finally. Now I can start my journey back to balance. It's been several years now since I've abandoned the pursuit of learning Chinese Medicine in order to maintain my job as a corporate drone. It's not that I hate my job. It's a very good job and sometimes I enjoy it but it is not my career path.
I remember my first Chinese Medicine class, Theory 101, where I learned the most basic principals of the types of energy contained in and used by the body. This included the introduction of the Three Treasures (Jing, Qi and Shen), the most vital of which is the energy that we get from the womb called Jing essence. This is the energy that we are born with. There is a limited amount of Jing, in which we die when it's all used up. Certain life choices, such as drinking and smoking and too much sexual activity, etc. can greatly accelerate the degeneration of Jing, which not only decreases one's life span but also the quality of life. It was in this first Theory class that the realization hit me, my job was actually killing me. After class I went outside and cried on the bench. It was because of this that eventually I had to decide between school and work and since I had a child, you know the story... Ironically, I would have been much better off staying in school and letting go of the job but that wasn't really an option. Years later now, still with the same but much accelerated insomnia problem, it has broken me down, stolen many years of Jing and is basically crippling me (kicking my ass). So having insomnia is not quite the same as chronic long-term insomnia. I have no idea how much Jing essensce I have left but I know that if I don't do something drastic soon, I'm not going to make it. In this regard, I made a couple of decisions based on realizations as of late. First realization: I've been negative about my condition, not really out loud but in my mind I've been giving in to self-pity. It's not a judgement per say, it's merely a realization which allows me to make a new choice. So, I want to be more positive now. In order to do that I'm going to have to have a little more faith in the Universe and stop worrying so much. I'm going to worry less about my job and my health and whether I have cancer or if I'm dying. I have rescheduled the thyroid biopsy and I'm not going to worry about it. I'm going to stop creating unnecessary suffering on top of the suffering I already have, which I fully accept that I've previously created at some point in my existence. The second decision I made was to throw out all sleep medications that are made from the antihistamine class of drugs, i.e. - hydroxyzine, doxylamine, most over the counter sleep medications, etc. This class of medications has always worked the best for me and thus I have used them for years but this type is one of the ones said to cause dementia and now when I use it, days later I feel like it's taking my mind. My mind is literally numb and I can no longer access my brain as I once did. I still have other types of sleep medication, which I'm keeping for as long as I'm still working. (Though I've only been able to work one to two days a week at this point.) So the antihistamines are gone and they're not coming back. |
AuthorJust a sleeping beauty trying to wake up by getting some sleep. -GG Archives
November 2018
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