This Tickaversary post is purposely, joyously, and miraculously late. I had a feeling long ago that it might be, and I began so many drafts of this post throughout the year to get a head start, trying to remember my experiences and progress. But so much happens in the meantime that what I wrote (which felt Really Big and Important at the time) always seems so small and insignificant. Or rather, the lessons I learned incorporate so fluidly into my life that they become routine and unnoticed. That Lyme itself is becoming an ever-smaller and insignificant part of my story is not lost on me. I hardly dared to imagine it. Yes, it was a turning point of my life, my greatest teacher, my greatest downfall, a catalyst and a trauma and a gift. But it is not me, nor my life story, nor my purpose. I memorialize it less and less with milestones and checklists, and more and more with the greater distances traveled and deeper truths experienced.
I have this feeling like… I really don’t feel like posting. My drafts are more like diary entries and observations, notes and lessons that I want to archive for future reference; but when it comes time to post, something just shuts down. It used to be that I felt too vulnerable, too exposed, too controversial, too unsafe to share, afraid of comments and backlash and perceptions. So I would sit on my words for a while, do emotional processing, and come to a place of acceptance and courage and editing that felt right by the time I published. But now it’s different. Fear doesn’t hold me back, nor, I’m surprised to find, lack of purpose. I may have, in all my floundering to find meaning in life, stumbled upon the very evolution of purpose itself, heretofore unrecognized because it came not, as expected, through doing, but rather through not doing. (Oh, that’s very Lao Tzu of me...)
I don’t want to do this Lyme blogging anymore. Not only do I not want to identify my body’s experience as “Lyme” all the time (because sometimes its COVID, sometimes its muscle overexertion, sometimes its dehydration, and sometimes, let’s face it, its just gas), but I don’t want to label (or schedule) my writing as “Lyme support,” or my art as “Lyme therapy,” or my music as “chronic illness-inspired.” Is much of it? Of course – it’s an experience that forever altered my life and worldview. The pain and grief of my journey is going to come through in my work, as well as the triumphs that only exist in light of where I've been. But it’s not my whole story, not even the half of it, and I would be dishonoring and debasing all the wonderful intricate facets and filigrees of my life by letting Lyme control or even color the whole narrative. Just as I no longer give it credit for all my body’s functions (or malfunctions), I no longer want to let it have all the credit for my life’s experiences and emotions.
Is this post too long? Absolutely and sincerely. But I don’t care. This is what I want to do with my life. Write. Express. Observe everything. Not "create content" that is readable in 3 short minutes, not curate easy-to-follow guides for healing, not cater to the short attention span of “Lyme Brain” or people in a hurry who just want my latest gossip. I healed beyond all that. I will live beyond all that.
As it happens, today begins Lyme Disease Awareness Month, and I had completely forgotten about it until I found my archives On This Day full of lime green illustrations and tick safety facts. I honor my former self for using my voice, expressing my fears, and sharing my knowledge in an attempt to create a safer and healthier society. And now I would like to honor my current self, expressing my freedom, sharing my progress and movement and new paradigms, and creating a safer and healthier present moment. I want to make sure I know that I'm not only worthy, my story isn't only important, because I got sick, because I had a disease that needs more awareness. I need more awareness. I should have been sharing and expressing long before I had a cause.
We often call healing a journey, but it should not be the whole journey. It’s a segment of the road on life’s journey, or maybe rather a vital provision we must collect and carry through the whole trip of diverse experiences. As such, Lyme is certainly not the whole journey, and not even the whole of the “healing” detour or provision. For me. Truly, and appropriately, it will be a much larger part for others, not necessarily because they’re sicker for longer, or will not ever heal, but because they do have a purpose in a life devoted to Lyme (or chronic illness, or health) education, advocacy, and advancement. The world needs people with those purposes to teach us all, not just to heal, but to love and accept and have compassion. Even so, permission granted to pivot, change, heal, grow, and evolve from that purpose if and when it is no longer fulfilling or healthy.
Is this a form of denial of all the pain and suffering I’ve been through and might relapse? Am I in remission and living my best life, and so repressing a lot of fear that I don’t want to acknowledge? No. I am very much present with the emotional and physical toll chronic illness has taken on me and my nervous system. It is trauma, and I keep it as near to the surface as possible to constantly heal and transform in the fresh air and sunlight. I have learned the dangers of repression, the deadly consequences of shoveling layer after layer of coping and denial on top of pain. I won’t do that anymore.
But as the trauma wound begins to close and scab and heal, it gets smaller and smoother, allowing more of healthy life to show through and continue on, the scars becoming less and less significant. I am busy. I’m tired, and I move slowly, but my life outside the perimeter of the Chronic Illness scar is expanding and I’m stepping more and more into my own skin. I still, very much so, have to attend to the wound and prevent infection or complications, but wound care (in this case, trauma care and somatic therapy) is part of the daily routine, eventually becoming as benign and ubiquitous as eating, hand-washing, and sweeping the floor.
First of all, as I hoped and dreamed, I was too busy to make the annual Tickaversary post because I was buying my first home – a little European flat – and am renovating, decorating, and setting the stage for a future free of disease and PTSD. Of course, there is endless bureaucracy and immigration paperwork, but a quick reality check transforms that into surprisingly wonderful and glorious bureaucracy and paperwork because for the first time in my life it has nothing to do with health insurance coverage or medical records. I had the distinct privilege of burning those massive stacks in the backyard fire pit. (Insert Big Goofy Grin).
Yes, and, the reality is also that moving part-time between continents and living a double / split life is really exhausting and nerve-wracking. Many days, self-care and fatigue management must become the priority, more often than an average healthy person. (What do we call those “normal” people anyway? Bio-typical? Type A’s? Uninitiated? Stress-deniers? Still in the Matrix?) I’m still triggered by “not looking sick” when I am in intense recovery, and explaining my limitations to people who don’t care. The number of times I’ve heard that Budapest has a good Lyme doctor, Hungarians have the cure for Lyme, if I just take a mega-dose of calcium I will be cured… the number of times I’ve had to be the American demanding accommodations from the chef because I’m allergic to things it’s not “possible” to be allergic to… yes, indeed, the trauma is most definitely still present!
But thank God I have enough of my own skin to continue living in, thick enough to brush off the misunderstandings, though they still sting very much, and keep pressing on without become undone. This is a work in long progress, a little tiny bit better each year.
Yes, and, I still become undone.
I reached a moment at the beginning of the year where life felt perfect. I didn’t have everything I wanted, and I wasn’t as healthy as I imagine I will be, but I had everything I needed to make it happen. I was extremely content, grateful, hopeful, rested, and felt safe and confident to begin the next chapter of the journey. I saw all my ducks in a row, and began to visualize the development of my art and music career. I had literal forest animals dancing around me. I told my husband that if we won the lottery jackpot, I wouldn’t change a thing. Sure, we’d move forward with less stress, and life would progress a little faster and easier, but my plans would remain, my routine would remain; there was nothing I wanted or needed this urgently that money could solve. Just time.
And then it all fell apart. In the span of a single week, I was dealt four major blows, including a lease-termination notice, that shattered all my plans, all my expectations, all my perceptions, my universe, my self, my God, my knowledge. My hopeful, happy, healing, fair-weather mantra that I’d just committed to grounding myself in every morning was silenced. I was silenced. Everything I thought I knew and trusted just ceased to be. Or so it felt. I had no words. I tried to focus on the possibilities, even the benign realities, rather than the worst-case scenarios, mental stories, misunderstandings, bad news, disruptions. I tried to cling to my coping mechanisms and positive affirmations. But stress won out. Trauma responses won out. The overwhelming undeniable fact was that my plans for the year were absolutely thrown into the unknown and would require incredibly stressful maneuvers to sort out and move forward in any case (and now I suddenly really really needed that lottery jackpot, which made me feel foolish and greedy and hypocritical). The fact was that people are their own people, and will make their own decisions and evolve in their own way, and my relationships with them are always momentary and subject to dissolution at any moment. The fact was that I have no control over politics and international law. The fact was, I was being called to grow yet again, suddenly, and quickly, and without my usual long and thoughtful preparation. I have rarely felt so viscerally that the rug has been pulled out from under me. The “fact” was that when my hope and faith and trust and love were truly tested, I (so it seemed) failed and threw it all to doubt and confusion and anger. I hear and read over and over that I have to keep my heart open in these situations. And mine closed – tight – in self-protection.
I shut down. I went numb, I went into dissociation, I went into depression. I was heading for a Lyme relapse; that’s certainly what it felt like. But something in me said, “no.” No, Lyme is not my story. Lyme is not the boogey-man waiting to get me every time my immune system is stressed. Something in me refused to accept my doctor’s diagnosis of impending relapse. No; this is stress. No; this is grief. No; this is fear and anger and uncertainty. Yes, I’ll take a modest increase of anti-pathogenic herbs, because I know in my stress I am susceptible to infection. Yes, I’ll support my immune system and get acupuncture for my irritated liver. But no. No, I will not take any more Lyme, or Bartonella, or Babesia thoughts. This is not their chapter. This is not their spotlight. They don’t have a say anymore. They don’t own my fear any more.
I focused on listening to my body, rather than reciting back at it the narratives of reactivated spirochetes and reinfected red blood cells. Observing the ways it was naturally dealing with this stress. Marveling at the clockwork stages of grief greeting my days and weeks: denial – okay, let’s get ‘er done, I’m not sick anymore, I can handle it; anger – who do they think they are? Why is God punishing me? Distressed liver (the organ governing anger); bargaining – maybe we can compromise, maybe I will calm down and see things differently, maybe they will change their mind, maybe I’ll have a miraculous strength to do the impossible; and depression.
Sadness. Lethargy. Numbness. Not caring. Not talking. Not loving. Not feeling. Just depression.
DEPRESSION
This one is the hardest for me, because its diagnosis and story and grip on my life goes back much farther and deeper than Lyme. Depression was my first chronic diagnosis. Major Depressive Disorder. Hereditary. Untreatable. Incurable. While Lyme has become a small story, whose relapse I can refute and refuse, depression was always the first story, my life narrative, whose relapse taunts and tortures me into utter shame and failure. As much as I don’t care to be a Lyme warrior or expert or advocate, I do, in some ways, not mind being the face of depression recovery. Of getting off 20 years of prescription medications, being clean 4 years, and blowing up the myths of genetic chemical imbalance. Conquering hereditary clinical depression by uncovering the roots of trauma and suppression is my jam. If there is one thing I want to be successful in, if there is one truth I want to be able to tell people and myself, one identity I’ll gladly own, it’s that I “cured” my Major Depressive Disorder and got off a lifetime of prescription antidepressants.
So every time my grief cycles through the stage of depression, I am utterly undone. I am exposed. A phony. A fake. A liar. A failure.
A second doctor backed my instincts: applied kinesiology testing found no infections, no relapse, no heavy metal dump, none of the old Lyme and herx complications that are insisted upon in the Lyme community. Just an angry liver, for no “apparent” reason. I was relieved and proud of myself for avoiding the relapse paradigm. But I also knew the “truth.” I may have beaten Lyme, but I can’t beat depression and despair.
But here’s the thing about depression: it is often built on believing lies. Lies about ourselves, others, society, the world, God, “reality.” Lies so entrenched we can’t possibly see a way out. So my greatest weapon in defending my badge of honor, and my truth, is cutting through the lies. I have not failed to cure my Major Depressive Disorder. I do, in truth, no longer have the diagnosis of a disorder. Not just because I don’t believe in it, not just because I can manage without medication, but because, in truth, there is nothing disordered about my current depression.
All I have learned has taught me that depressive episodes are perfect order. They are the brain and body’s way of skillfully dealing with overwhelm. If there’s too much to feel, so much that it threatens the healthy function of the autonomic nervous system, and thus the entire body downstream, then cut down on the feelings. Get depressed. If there’s too much abuse and trauma, too much shame, then cut back the sensations of reality. Get depressed. If there’s too much to do, cut down the desire to do anything not absolutely necessary. Get depressed. If there’s too much fear, too much anxiety, too many uncontrollable unknowns, then turn down the volume on the brain’s alarm center and minimize the heavy work load in the planning and thinking centers. Get depressed.
My depression, in the current circumstances, my hopelessness in not seeing an easy way out, my grief over losing worldviews and relationships and my future plans, is completely and blessedly normal and healthy. The only proper way to handle it is to accept it and let it run its course while I let circumstances I can’t control unfold in their own time. I have a toolbox full of regulating practices to keep my body and mind healthy and functioning while depressed, but it is not a toolbox of remedies. It is not an arsenal of magic bullets that will make my depression go away. I will still feel a stark absence of joy even when I’m having a good time. I will still feel hopeless when things are working out perfectly. I will still have to endure a recovery period of my neurotransmitters and receptors that is not going to allow me the sensation of full bliss for while. That’s okay.
The biggest “dis-ease” I have to overcome is the teaching that depression is a sickness. A disorder. A diagnosis, a shame, a short-coming, a disappointment, a sin, an unacceptable and inexcusable state. Am I okay living like this forever? No! That’s why I have resources. That’s why I meditate and connect and eat healthy and find humor and take tonic herbs and vitamins as I learn to recognize the myriad symptoms and discomforts that naturally come with the body and mind cycling through their stresses and re-balancing mechanisms. I have no reason to believe this will last forever, which is the main difference between my depression and a disorder: a disorder is believing the lie that things will always be this way and nothing can or will ever change. That cannot be so: the way of the universe itself is constant change, ebb and flow, rise and fall, inhale and exhale. My last remnant of disorder is my continued distrust of this universal law, thinking that I must always be on the rise, in the sun, feeling great, living perfectly, or else there’s something physically or morally wrong with me; fearing the inevitable nightfall, exhale, rest, winter, solitude, waiting for the bomb to drop; resisting and labeling as “disorder” the yin, shadow, empty seasons; not remembering there is always a dawn to every darkness, always an inhale after every exhale. I’ve been through the cycle again and again, and have come through with greater wisdom and strength, and I still have trouble trusting the process.
But I know. There is something deep down inside of me that knows, even when I can’t see or feel. I want to stick around, to endure anything, just to see how it ends, anticipating the mind-blowing beauty of the new dawn. I want to live to see the next inhale. Yes, there is still a part of me that is tired and exhausted and doesn’t care how it ends, but is quite sure it will be bad and humiliating and full of regrets, which only wants the next inhale to be as an unbound spiritual being flying in the cosmos. That is the part that succumbs to the depression and even suicidality, and then... I can be grateful for the mind-numbing depression that just might be saving my life from over-thinking and over-acting. Grateful for depression, instead of ashamed and afraid. A point I got to with Lyme painstakingly enough, but never imagined I could ever get here with depression. Yet here we are.
On the practical front, I did have a lot I wanted to share from the last year, and it finally feels right, having much broader applications than the “Lyme management” paradigm I wish to escape.
FOOD and NUTRITION
I tried a keto/fasting diet from Dr. Mindy Pelz’s “Fast Like A Girl,” trying to reset some residual fatigue and dysregulation. My takeaway is that fasting is a healthy practice, much easier and more effective if done in sync with your own hormonal cycle, which is explained in the book, and of course in the context of an otherwise-healthy diet. I almost immediately experienced a positive change in my menstrual cycle, and my blood sugar has been much more stable. A ketogenic diet, on the other hand, in my experience, is severely dehydrating, dysregulating, and imbalancing, beyond the “detox” and “keto flu” that newcomers to low-sugar real-food diets would experience (as a veteran healthy eater, this excuse doesn’t fly with me). I am allergic to the corn-derived additives (citric acid, ascorbic acid, maltodextrin, etc) that are ubiquitous in electrolyte supplements, so I had no way to stay in equilibrium when the ketosis sucked me dry. I was having panic attacks and traumatic triggers from feeling so sick and shaky. Thankfully I learned about medicinal mineral water from living in Europe and was able to procure some, as well as preservative-free unsweetened coconut water, which got me back to functioning. I relied heavily on internet boards to get me through the negative side effects, which were very downplayed, glossed-over or completely ignored in the book. I highly recommend learning about how women should be fasting differently based on their cycles, a big plus for the book; but I was disappointed in the overemphasis on healing miracles and lack of support for healing crises.
I am still whole-heartedly team Whole30 for “reset” dieting, and would reconsider strict keto only if a trusted doctor really urged it. Anything that requires counting and measuring is a big red flag for me personally (see the next paragraph). As it is, I continue to eat intuitively, culturally, and seasonally, and have found that my desire for more or less fat, protein, and carbs is naturally tuned with the female hormone cycle. I naturally have less appetite, and want more fats and proteins during menstruation and ovulation, and even find myself with an aversion to sweets, fostering a natural shift into intermittent fasting and ketogenic eating at appropriate times. But I do crave carbs and sugar, and eat like a horse at the other end of the hormonal spectrum, and can move guilt-free into a more starch-heavy diet at those times. Learning about medicinal dietary regimens is something I heartily recommend; adhering to them in fear-based over-control is not. Everything must be adjusted to your personal physical and mental health.
My other reason for experimenting with fasting and resetting is that I am still trying to debug multiple food sensitivities. Many have faded away and the general Mast Cell Activation Syndrome is gone. However new reactions still pop up. There is a delicate balance here of chemicals and food production methods, cross-contamination, disparities across America and Europe, histamine tolerance, hormonal cycles, but largely stress and psychosomatic symptomology. While many therapies promise to “reset” the gut, which may be crucial in early stages of healing and physiological overhaul, I am finding that diagnosing and treating food sensitivities (and any symptom for that matter) as another war to be fought and won is only keeping me in constant battle, rather than healing. To say it another way, since using food as medicine, I have been dangerously close to developing an eating disorder, by being obsessed with the nutrition and systemic effects of my food. I hate to say it that way, and diagnosing eating disorders for anything other than weight and image obsessions isn’t always popular. Some call it, rather, “disordered eating.” At any rate, this is tricky territory, because on the one hand, a healthier diet has done wonders for my physical and mental health; having control over my nutrient intake and food-as-medicine protocols have gotten me off multiple prescription drugs and brought me to a place of security in my ability to find nourishment and tonics in any situation. On the other hand, fear and anxiety at meal time is terrible for the digestive and immune systems, and at some point, I start to know and think too much about my food, where it comes from, the morals and health of the producer and farmer and fisherman, the fate of the planet, the fate of my liver. I begin to hate eating, partially because mealtime was extremely stressful as a picky kid and is sometimes triggering, and partially because we’re in a “Good Place” conundrum where our food system is so complex and convoluted we literally can do no right at this point. Despite many claims, I have yet to witness any diet be a cure-all.
I have been aware of this issue for many years, and I'm not sure if admitting to it has been at all helpful in the (increasingly annoying and inappropriate) discussions around my diet (can we just talk about anything other than my disabilities, please?) I am trying to commit to trusting my body, and gently inquiring of its wisdom (and symptoms) as I listen to its needs. Instead of fighting new sensitivities (which I do, because, come on man, we’re supposed to be healing… and I really want some grilled cheese!) I’m trying to let them run their course. I avoid the perpetrators, let my digestive system and nervous system reset, and try again later to reintroduce them under less pressure. Sometimes I have success, other times not. The mental battle is the hardest part, from managing stress, to not feeling like a phony, to explaining to exasperated hosts why I can’t eat that thing anymore. I begged my husband to help me not make a big deal out of it and just take it in stride, which is a challenge for both of us and our families, but I’m committed to my inner peace and nonjudgment. Just let me be allergic for a while. Don’t ask why or how. Just let it be.
PSYCHEDELICS
I tried medical-purpose marijuana for the first time, since recreational use was legalized in my state, meaning I could bypass the high doctor/certificate fee that was holding me back from giving it a shot for chronic pain and insomnia. My first experience with a water pipe was physically unpleasant (stinging lungs, sinus inflammation, almost burning off my eyebrows) but with the mildest strain available (2:1 CBD to THC I believe it was), I eventually got into a drowsy and relaxed high. My chronic pain disappeared after 10 minutes, which thrilled the living daylights out of me. Because I learned so much about psychoneuroimmunology, I was analyzing my physiology the whole time as a keenly interested and fascinated observer. My physical and autonomic inhibitions were delightfully offline, but my deeper inquirer was investigating with full vigor: This feels good… but only because I know I’m safe and won’t be violated... I want to be angry or irritated about (insert annoying habit/neighbor/dog here)… but I don’t care. Why does the number 23 suddenly make me sad? If don’t care about A, but still feel deeply hurt by B, does it mean that B is a deeper trauma? More real? Visceral rather than mental? Now I’m crying about my daddy issues... It ended up being a trauma therapy session with myself, and though I felt nauseated and did not sleep well, the experience was a good release and I think was very helpful in rewiring chronic pain circuits. I reminded myself frequently of John Sarno’s work with TMS, and made an effort to notice that though I could still feel the physical sensation of discomfort (pressure, tightness, inflammation, in both my back and sinuses), the mental/perceptual sensation of pain – stinging, anxiety, agony – was not there. It is possible to have a condition or injury, even slipped discs, without feeling pain. My experience with marijuana – in a purposely-cultivated, relaxed, safe, educated, and legal circumstance – strengthened that idea.
However, after a few months of stress and returned pain and sleeplessness, (and concerned about the health of my respiratory system post-COVID), I decided to try edibles instead of smoking. I made them myself, carefully followed directions, and had what I thought was a micro-dose brownie. I ended up extremely high and having a 6-hour psychedelic panic attack. My worst mistake was involving medical professionals, who drugged me in the ER with benzos and added a whole new horrifying layer to my existing medical and pharmaceutical trauma. The first few weeks after, I was very traumatized and triggered by the thought of having damaged my brain or induced permanent flashbacks, the existential crises I felt while high, the simultaneous relief and anger I felt every time yet another trusted professional told me, “Yeah, that happened to me too with edibles.” Why doesn’t anyone talk about it? Why weren’t practitioners prepared to offer more support and awareness ahead of legalization efforts? How much more are we suffering by making these subjects taboo?
I am happy to report that I have been able to move on from the experience. The anxiety and shame has faded away, I am not manifesting any permanent brain or liver damage, and the flashbacks and existential dread (aside from the regular artsy kind) are gone, unless I choose to torture myself with thought experiments – I still have perfect memory of what I went through (when I was conscious) and those thoughts do present some awful philosophical, theological, and sociological conundrums, not to mention the gross medical malpractice of emergency departments. At any rate, I am extremely grateful to have had trusted friends and doctors that I could be open and honest with, who supported me in the aftermath. My emotional processing has done its job well, and I’m proud of what I’ve cultivated in my mental health. I even tried a much smaller dose many months later, to see if I could get that pain reduction and calm back, and to teach my body that it was nothing to fear. It still gave me mild anxiety, insomnia, and nausea, and I won’t be needing edibles ever again, but I’m glad I gave my body the opportunity to reclaim the experience from uncontrollable trauma.
And just to make this whole adventure ridiculous, I found Aleve in Europe that doesn’t have allergens in it, so on the now-rare occasion my pain is unbearable (hello, COVID headache) I can pop a single pill like a normal person.
COVID
I discovered a new trick: instead of blaming Lyme for everything (and having to explain chronic complex Lyme and co-infections versus a 10-day antibiotic regimen for “Lymes Disease”), instead of even mentioning Lyme in relation to my symptoms, I can now say, “since COVID...” I have had new allergies pop up “since COVID.” My ear drum ruptured “since COVID.” Cigarette smoke smelled strangely different “after COVID.” Thank God society still knows nothing about viruses or Long-COVID, because they now keep their mouths humbly shut instead of schooling me on how I “should” have handled my “Lymes Disease.” Now I get sympathetic confessions like, “Yeah, I haven’t been quite right since COVID either...” and they keep their opinions and advice to themselves, or directed at themselves. MY GOD THAT’S REFRESHING.
So yeah, I finally got COVID for the first time in September 2023, and it hit me hard for 2 weeks. The absolute worst part of it, even though I was abroad and didn’t have access to a doctor, was that the chest congestion and pain brought back major Babesia flashbacks. COVID for me was 10% terrible viral infection and 90% medical trauma trigger. I pulled out every mental resource in my toolbox, and every TCM trick in my meridian chart, and ordered hefty supplies of mullein tea and lipsomal glutathione to go with my prepared trunk full of Oriental Medicine. I pulled through without any doctor visits, without prescriptions, without any blood work. Major boost to my confidence in self-healing!
I continued to use those tools in the aftermath, when I ruptured said eardrum, and developed said allergies to the foods I coincidentally (?) craved most in recovery (potatoes/chips in sunflower oil), and a fear of sea buckthorn berries, which was the last thing I drank before getting sick. I know the power of my mental state and associations, the power of fear and uncertainty sweeping the world during the pandemic, the power of unknown side effects and residual damage. In my opinion, Long COVID is the exact same disease as Chronic Lyme. 10% physical residue from infection, and 90% nervous system dysregulation from the incredible stress and fear of fighting a disease with murky prognosis (snowballing with public and personal judgments and hardships). At least, that’s what I tell myself, because that means if I made it through the impossibilities of Chronic Lyme, then I can make it through all the unknowns of COVID, and whatever else pops up in the future, by the power of my mind and knowledge of healthy natural self-treatment.
MIND-BODY HEALING
I am not without scientific and clinical support in this view. My biggest health resource of the year has been Primal Trust, by Dr. Cathleen King. One of my doctors told me about her work, and said it sounds a lot like what I do. Indeed, it is. The pressure of capitalizing on my healing and saving people’s lives and developing a program and paying it forward and making a difference and becoming a health coach is finally off for me, because someone else did it! Thank God! I really don’t want Lyme, even its healing or hero’s journey, to be my life’s purpose. (Trauma response? Doth I protest too much? Maybe).
So to put my entire journey in a nutshell and get it over with, I say: If you get sick, and need a medicinal treatment, use Chinese Medicine, (I particularly recommend the Classical sort, which treats complex diseases as gu syndrome, a la Heiner Fruehauf); but most importantly, get on a nervous system regulation protocol of neuroplasticity, psychoneuroimmunology, mind-body-spirit health, i.e, Primal Trust. Dr. Cat explains it all and gives you the tools for life. And life-changing. Anyone who’s life is not perfect should learn the fundamentals of this program. This should be first-line treatment and fundamental knowledge for Lyme Disease. It would turn our Lyme forums, support, and treatment on its head, literally. It would change the world and our entire medical system.
Full disclosure, I have not formally registered in the Primal Trust program, nor am I affiliated with it at this time. As I said, it matched so closely to all the research and healing I was doing on my own, I began following the social media accounts. Dr. Cat provides ample free resources, videos, media, e-books, and testimonies to glean healing secrets from without registering in the program; however, because the last nine years have been exhausting and traumatizing and quite frankly, f***ing hard work, I would whole-heartedly endorse paying for the program over much more expensive LLMD's and therapists. On the other hand, I'm here for the knowledge and experience, so if you like the scenic route, or don't have the resources, keep on, baby, you're gonna make it!
Meditation, acupressure, tapping, self-inquiry, talking and listening to my body, art therapy, writing therapy, craniosacral and myofascial therapy, neurobiology, and emotional intelligence are all big parts of my life. The key is finding physiological safety, a “primal trust” in myself, the universe, and the intelligence of my body’s self-balancing systems. Again, these are not magic tricks to instantly cure my symptoms, but are practices that encourage a healing paradigm shift from “chronic illness management” to “healthy lifestyle habits.” As stress-reducers and nervous system regulators, more often than not they have the side effect of modulating and alleviating many symptoms.
MOVING
I live part-time in Europe, but when we return to the US for work requirements, we will be losing the lease on my favorite house there. Circumstances are not quite right to transfer full-time to Europe, so I am essentially moving twice, on two continents, or possibly living out of a storage unit in the US. I’m moving, and I don’t know where. This will be my 10th move in 13 years, and I begin to dissociate every time I have to think about the incredible amount of stress that goes into moving – especially my richly-endowed thrift-art studio, “trash” that can’t be insured or claimed in customs, but means everything to me – possibly downsizing everything that I’ve lived to build over the last 9 years. Losing my piano. This move is the most emotional one I’ve had to make yet, and I’m just undone by impending loss. I swing wildly between numbing out, faking belief in a “new life” opportunity until I make it, and planning meticulously how to hold onto exactly that precious contentment and life that I worked so hard to build. No option comes without a lot of work and stress and compromise at this point. And I’m so very tired of those. I have to rely on faith. And I’m so very low on that these days.
Small dreams – or some version of them – are coming true, but in Eastern Europe, everything moves so incredibly slowly, including renovations. In my current state of unknown residence and future, it is salt in the wound: I see so very little progress toward my goals, day-to-day and in the long term, and very few solutions to immediate and larger problems. I have too much down time to remember the losses.
I am finding the extremely important and extremely elusive eternal present moment. If you’ve read anything about healing, miracles, manifesting, contentment, happiness, and purpose, you know that is the best possible place you can be. And for all my years of meditating, I only found it, in any sustainable capacity, through this crisis.
This post’s picture is one I painted just recently at an informal art therapy workshop. What I like about watercolor (which you may see occasionally on my Instagram) is that I’m “terrible” at it. I never got real formal training on the techniques, and what I watch online just doesn’t stick; I can’t control the medium. I can’t make it look how I want it to look. I have to surrender to the process. Which, in life, is exactly the necessary skill for healing, but also really really hard to do. Watercolor is a therapy that forces me to participate in the same kind of surrender I want to see in my larger life, where lack of control dances with a conscious directed use of color, water, and form. I make my choices, then have to let go and let them play out as they will. For me, watercolor is not about creating a perfect masterpiece as I think it should be, but about learning to appreciate the masterpiece that is the literal moment, the random direction of flow and intensity, the spontaneous creation of meaning and significance and representation, and surrender to whatever comes out. I’ve grown to love my unsightly watercolors, not as objets d’art, but as manifestations of a time and place and mental state in which I was a creator, a participator, alive.
In a complex and trying chapter of life in which I feel quite lost and disoriented, this simple exercise brought me back. It broke through the depression. It made me present, it made me happy. It made me trust in the moment, and though my brain, immediately afterward, tried to monkey-chatter about how to maintain the dopamine and what I should do next, who I should network with, what I should commit to, I silenced it. I stilled the movement. Yet, in a moment of stillness, I was moved.
The painting was based on a visualization of my happy place: the beach. I was troubled with decisions and implications: is the sun rising or setting, putting this beach on an east coast or west coast? Should I place footprints in the sand? Moving where? Into the water? To the left or to the right? Are the waves moving on or off the shore? More urgently, what does it all represent? Where am I going in life?!
I stared at my landscape, wondering what to do – and where to go – next, when I finally noticed the shadows of my paintbrushes, my hand, my knee, cast across the paper. So I painted the shadows. Of course, as I picked a brush out of my cup, or the wind caught my paper, or the clouds and sun drifted in the sky, the shadows moved, some after being captured, many without a trace. Suddenly I, and the moment at hand, were one with the painting; the art was one and the same with my reality; the shore visualized in my mind was reached in the landlocked park where sat my body. Mind, body, and spirit were joined in glorious and elusive presence, literal, figurative, and material.
I wanted to call this post “Moving On,” but I realized, as manifest in my painting, that I must remove the modifiers and prepositions. I must take away the pressure of “on,” or “this way” or “that way;” not expecting to move “forward” lest I find fear of moving “backward,” nor should the moment of stillness presume that I am moving “nowhere.”
Over the years, I have emphasized the importance of simply being, regardless of what we, in our illness and disabilities are capable of doing, regardless of what, if anything, we sense we are becoming. Now as I master the art of being, and find myself uncomfortably in this era of being stuck, I am aware of the importance of moving. Not to or from, on or out, forward or backward, not desperately seeking progression, per se, but simply being a body, a mind, a spirit, aware of constant faithful movement: breath is moving in and out. There’s a swaying rhythm in the here and now, a pulse. The current of qi moves through me, and I am moving on the current of Tao, a stream which sometimes goes on and sometimes pulls back and sometimes swirls around in little hidden tidepools.
To be is to move, unconditionally and effortlessly, and aimlessly, to vibrate with life, in all its frequencies and interferences. It doesn’t matter where I’m going; I am safely, orderly, freely, naturally, moving, whenever and wherever I am.
Comments