I recently just navigated the hardest year in my health journey so far. I had a very fast and very aggressive flare up of my arthritis, my thyroid went into hyperthyroidism and my digestive system completely shut down. I couldn't move majority of joints in my body, couldn't eat much food and spent 9 months on crutches, most of that time horizontal in bed. I went through a deep depression and withdrew from society as it all felt like too much. During this time I wrote alot, spent time with family, and sang. These were the medicines that kept me going. I wrote this piece for one of my assignments on a writing course I'm currently enrolled in. It sums up in a few words what I went through, but as with any major life changing event words don't capture the full essence of the enormous emotions, heartbreak and endurance that happens when one faces a health crisis. My hope is that by reading these words you will take a moment to stop and listen to the messages of your body, before it begins to shout...
I stare at the ceiling, unable to peel my eyes away, unable to move. I count the squares between the protruding panels, even though I know there are exactly 12. I have counted them many times before, yesterday, the day before that and twice already today. The off white colour burns into my retinas as warm tears roll gently down the sides of my face. I make no effort to wipe them away, the pillow already decorated with 2 wet patches catching their silent fall.
It has been 3 months since the day life stopped and got ripped apart. Until you lose your health, you have no idea how valuable it is, how when you don’t have good health it’s hard to focus on anything else. Your whole life becomes engulfed with doing whatever you can to feel better. To not feel broken. I feel broken now as I count the squares once more.
Questions swirl around my head, with no answers coming to meet them. Just space. Space for thoughts to dance round and round and round.
Arthritis is a bitch. My joints hurt. More than hurt, they burn, and everytime I move it feels like a thousand shards of glass splintering between each of the spaces where my limbs bend. Intense pain sapping the joy and freedom I once felt, replacing it with despair, despondency and a deep, dark depression. I sigh, letting this moment of defeat wash over me and pull me down.
No amount of positive thinking, affirmations, meditation or medication is touching this disease within me. It hurts to sit, and everytime I have to roll over I howl, from a primal place deep within my bones to try and mitigate the sheer pain that shoots through me. I lay in this bed unable to move.
Out of my depths in a situation that's so out of my control, I feel like I’m floating. I try to grip at anything I can but everything falls away one by one. My career, my partner, the life I built, my savings along with my sense of self. As my foundations crumble, my anxiety levels soar through the roof as I realise I am being held captive, a prisoner of this body and I am now on its timeline.
Once everything has fallen away I am left sitting in a vast expansive space with nowhere to go, nowhere to hide and no choice other than to sit with, and in, my body. This is the moment where the lessons begin.
With all distractions snatched from my hands I am left alone with my thoughts. The ones I’ve tried to run from, the ones I tried to silence out by keeping busy, the ones I shoved down with food, the ones I’ve shut up by getting black out drunk and having one night stands. They are here now, louder than ever. Memories pop in and out like I’m replaying the movie of my life. Events and old conversations that happened years ago flitter their way onto the screen in my mind, things I haven't processed or thought about in forever.
The space that had come into my life by not being able to move meant everything I had once suppressed was now coming forth to be looked at, processed and felt. Traumatic events, residual grief from loved ones passed, painful breakups, actions I’m not proud of, hurtful exchanges between friends. I had nothing to drown out the words, the feelings or the emotions moving through my body.
As weeks turned to months I navigated all of the sensations going on inside, whilst being thrown from one specialist to the next to find out what was going on. My life movie kept on playing out on the screen in my mind, forcing me to look at everything, to feel everything, to hear the lessons. I realised that this captivity was presenting me with endless time to teach me wisdom I could not have gained any other way. My captivation became the classroom, my body became my school. And the more I let go and surrendered, the more I learned. After 9 months the light at the end of the tunnel came into view as a way through to freedom was presented to me. This freedom came in the form of a double hip replacement surgery, some hefty medications and an extensive rehab programme. 3 major things that were going to be the icing on the cake in surrender, letting go and really getting in touch with my body that I had been trying to escape for so long. I feel like the years leading up to this captivation my body was trying to get me to hear the messages. It just needed to shout louder and give me no choice but to hear.
We so often miss the messages. The subtle cues constantly guiding us back home to our true selves. If I have learnt anything it’s that they cannot be silenced forever, they will find a way to shout, they will find a way for you to hear. Can you slow down for a moment and listen?
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