This week has got me thinking. Thinking a lot about how the health of my body my be connected to the health of my mind. I've been sick for a long time. Sick from something or a combination of something practically since I had Audrey almost 8 years ago. Different stomach issues and then their was that 3 or 4 year bout with headaches and then a mixture of stomachaches and headaches and now just stomachaches. I keep asking David "am I ever going to feel good again?"…"have I ever even felt good?" It seems like it has been so long, I can hardly remember…
This new diet that I have been on has taken me on a roller coaster. There have been days where I have felt absolutely amazing, and then days when my stomach once again feels like it is on fire and it gets me so depressed I just want to crawl back in bed and start crying. It is so random I can't make sense of it. I have been introducing fruit back into my diet this week and it has been especially hard. The organic apple I ate on Saturday didn't affect me at all…so was it really the organic apple I ate on Sunday then sent me back to bed in pain? What did I do different? What did I do the same? I literally can't make sense of it, and it is just making me terribly confused and frustrated.
A few days ago I was feeling amazing. Better than I possibly have ever felt. Literally. Like in my entire life. My stomach was pain free. My head was pain free. My body felt so healthy, it was like health was flowing in my blood. My skin felt good. My fingernails felt good. (call me weird….but I'm serious ;-) I have been eating nothing but high quality foods and absolutely zero sugar for 19 days and I was feeling the effects. I was just sitting there feeling good. And all of a sudden I panicked. What if I felt like this? What if I felt amazing all the time? What if… and then I literally thought…What would I spend my time worrying about?
huh!?!
It hit me light a bolt of lightening. What the heck? And I almost started crying. I have spent so much time and effort, so much money, so much time in thought and so much time worrying, so much time on the computer researching, so much time reading, so much time planning menus and trying new foods and recipes…and all of it focused on my health. But what if I was healthy? What then? What if I didn't have the excuse that I didn't feel good? What if Audrey asked me to play a game…and I couldn't say "Maybe tomorrow…I have a stomach ache right now." What if I had to say "sure, ok, I am actually feeling amazing." What if I didn't have a reason not clean the house…what if I didn't need a nap…what if I felt so good…I could do things. What if I felt obligated to do things. And it hit me…what if I am afraid to be well. What if I'm afraid to really be there for my kids…because I feel so overwhelmed. I'm scared. Scared to fail them. Scared to play with them because I don't know how…because I don't know what would happen. Because I might do it wrong, or not good enough, or maybe I won't like it? I know I am terrified to have baby #4…terrified. So maybe I'm hiding. Hiding behind being sick. Giving myself an excuse to be less than I am…less than I could be...
I'm not saying that my illnesses have been made up. I know the pain in my head and in my stomach has been real…too real. But what if there was more to it than just healing our bodies by eating the right foods? What if it also involved healing our minds, healing our hearts? How would you begin? How would you face it? How could it be done?
Yesterday I had something I wanted to avoid…because I was scared…is that really what was going on? I needed an excuse, so my body handed me one? My brain blamed the apple I had introduced into my diet…but maybe it was the fear…the worry…the anxiety of doing something I wanted to do but was afraid to do...
I'm scared to death that the answer to that question might be yes.
It would explain why my stomach aches seem to unexplainably turn on and off. Why one day I am fine and the next I am not. Why one moment I feel like I am cured and the next I feel as if I am worse off than ever before. Maybe it makes zero sense to my conscious mind and 100% sense to my subconscious…
I have often thought to myself that I am afraid to really live…afraid to really be myself. And it seems the older I get the more true this is. I want to stay home more and go out less…I don't want to do things it they are too spontaneous, if they take too much effort...
The problem is that I don't really know how to proceed. How do you heal a mind that is afraid? How do you heal fear? How do you embrace being a mom when it is so overwhelming. How do you watch your children screaming with delight when you feel so incredibly good you can't tell them to go in the other room and be quiet? yes…please be noisy…please feel joy…please be yourself and live loudly...because I feel good enough to be present with that…to feel joy with you…to listen to those loud noises that I never liked before…but now I love…
thoughts…advice….ideas….I need some...
Last day in Washington
7 years ago
3 comments:
No thoughts or advice, just lots of love and a hug from across the miles. :)
I totally understand what you are going through. They recently changed my diagnosis from Ulcerative Colitis to Crohn's because I went to a Rheumatologist and he said that I don't have RA. Crohn's is associated with join pain even to my degree. I couldn't help but cry after receiving this news. Most of my life and identity has been having RA and the pain it causes me every day. I couldn't help but have a hard time accepting that I don't have RA and that it has been undiagnosed Crohn's this whole time. I have another colonoscopy coming up. I still have no control and answers. It has been a long row of doctors and blood tests. On top of everything I was also just diagnosed with Thyroiditis which is causing me to have hypothyroidism. I understand what you mean when you ask "Will I ever feel good again?" I ask myself that every day. I am trying to be patient and hang in there, but it is hard! I love you, try to hang in there too! It will get better. We just have to pray and be patient. Hope we can catch up soon.
Sometimes I think we are twins separated at birth or something...we seem to think about a lot of the same stuff! I am sorry you are still having so many ups and downs. That really makes life difficult! Back when I was in college I had this same realization about myself: that while I definitely have some physical ailments that positive thinking cannot remove, the perfectionist part of me was clinging to sickness because I felt it gave me an excuse to not be perfect. Somehow I felt like I needed a reason to not be as awesome as I always thought I should be. In a nutshell the thing that was most helpful to me was an in depth study of the fall and the atonement... especially understanding the fall of Adam and how it fits into God's plan. I realized that I already had a reason not to be perfect now: I am mortal. And Heavenly Father is ok with that. After some intensive study, and trying to accept my mortal self, my sleeping improved significantly. That didn't fix everything; I'm still mortal ;) but it started me on that path to emotional and physical healing. I pray that things will go well for you with this baby!
Post a Comment