Getting sick or better?

12 years ago the Gods woke me up. At least they did all they could to do so. Me however, stubborn as a true capricorn did not want to hear it. It felt like it happened from one day to another, but looking back that was obviously not the case. Let's be honest, I was on the run for my entire life. Running from the pain and the darkness I felt within myself. You see, I always thought that my defense/coping machine was to fight. Turns out I was running away, flight!  Running away from my life. I guess being disrupted from my roots caused my system to stay in a constant alarm mode. Growing up in a foreign family system on the other side of the pacific ocean, where I experienced no sense of belonging did not inspire the safety I needed to trust life. I'm just psychoanalyzing here but if we are going to get real about it and speak about core wounds, I'm pretty confident this was mine. When I experienced a bunch of traumatic events shortly after one another, I guess my system in its foundation already on alarm mode, decided it was time to crash and burn. 

I was visiting a friend in the city centre of Amsterdam, the icky tourist section of this grand city. I remember sitting there in that cafe, feeling I just took a few hits of speed. My eyes shot across the cafe as though I was desperately looking for something I lost. My hands clutched the warm cup of coffee, trying my best to pay attention to what my friend was saying.  Suddenly the sounds of my environment started to amplify. I heard the people around me talking, laughing, scraping their throats, the waiters taking peoples orders, the trams outside, the music, a mother yelling at her child. Someone bumping into someone else which made a glass fall from a table. The sound of the chattering glass pierced me in my brain. The lights started to get bright. It got so bright I started to rub in my eyes for a second to try and adjust. Then suddenly I felt my friend's hand on my knee under the table. Her touch made me glance down where I saw how my foot was tapping obsessively on the floor. She asked if I was okay. I've had panic attacks before in my life, this was something else. 

Next thing I knew I found myself back in the train on my way home. I called Jurian, my baby daddy. I asked him to come meet me at the station. I went to the train guard  and asked her for help. I passed out. I remember passing out a couple of times before we reached our destination. She helped me out of the train into Jurian his arms, who was waiting there for me with our new born baby. When we got home we called an ambulance. 

Long story short this was the beginning of a long recovery/discovery/awakening process. 

I want to take you with me through some of the choices I made when this started to happen. 

First we took the regular way, we went to the doctor, to the hospital, and went to see internist specialists. I could not move my body properly anymore. I was experiencing extreme fatigue, I slept most of the day and nights, I could not go to the bathroom alone and my body hurt all the time all over. I mean I felt pain in my eyelashes, it was all over! After a while I was diagnosed with an incurable auto immune disease. The internist told me there was nothing we could do but soften the symptoms and it would be wise to start preparing for life in a wheelchair. My doctor prescribed me multiple sedatives and pain controlling medicine and topped it off with some anti depressants, since all of this was launching me into the deepest depression of my life. 

We got sent to a clinic to help with regulating the physical symptoms I was having. When we parked in front of the building something changed. Jurian looked at me and said; are you sure about this while pointing at the sign on the building. PAIN AND EXHAUSTION CLINIC. 

No, I was not sure but we went in anyway. This doctor was the worst doctor I ever saw in my entire life. He treated me like an object and was so rude and disrespectful that if I was bodily able I would have jumped on him and beat him into politeness. However, since this was not an option, midway the meeting we stood up and left. In the car I cried, I felt desperate and defeated. Luckily for me Jurian did not feel these ways, he told me we would find another path to take, and we did. And so I began. 

I started to go into different medicines. Accupunctuur, ayurveda, orthomolecular therapy, trauma therapy, vortex healing, haptonomy, massage therapy, hypnotherapy, you name it i tried it. Now keep in mind, we just had a baby, we just lost jurians mom to cancer, we were f^cking doing the damn thing! I tried it all and I dove deeper and deeper in myself to reach the point where I felt hope. It was a combination of a few things that helped me reach that point. I met some great healers and teachers that helped me see this collapse as a gift, but also as a warning. By following a strict diet designed by an orthomolecular doctor and continuing vortex healing and therapy over time I started to feel better. I reconnected to my roots and reconnected with the medicine from my ancestors. My energy started to come back, little by little and I started to see how tired I really was. Not because of this disease but because of my running. It took me over 4 years to really feel I had truly recovered. No wheelchair, no chemical medications, no constant pain and exhaustion, we got out of that place. 

The whole experience obviously did not entirely wake me up to a state of enlightenment or being able to completely see myself. But it did wake me up in a few real ways. 

It woke me up in connection with my life's purpose. Because seeing the incredibly flawed systems of healthcare made me realise that if I did not have jurian with me in those moments, would I have still been in bed and in pain? So many people out there who are doing things like this alone, and are not able to advocate for themselves. What happens to them? Do they have to accept diagnoses given by people who do not see the human in a holistic way but as a collection of symptoms that need to be treated. And by treated I mean, in most cases oppressed. Now of course this does not apply to all doctors and all situations, I am talking about mine. My experience was that I was not seen as a human with a shitload of baggage who just gave birth and lost people. A human who had been struggling with depression and addiction their entire life. A human that was overwhelmed by life. And instead of being viewed as that, I was being treated as an incurable disease. Nothing to do about that little lady, good luck with your newborn. What they missed 12 years ago is that I am on the spectrum and I have complex ptsd. What they failed to acknowledge is that my body was telling this story and that I needed help to navigate that. They missed this, but more importantly, I missed this. I missed this! I did not allow myself to embrace or explore these sides of me out of fear for what that might mean. 

If you take that perspective I should send them some flowers to thank them for their perspective back then. Being able to see the healthcare system in this way woke me up. Yes indeed. It woke me up in feeling inspired to give people a different option. To create ways to look at the whole system of a person. And now 12 years later I am still nowhere close to being able to see the entire picture of a human being. Because we are complicated and magical, and it's hardly ever only one thing that creates any kind of discomfort. But my experience did teach me that there are always new ways, and different ways. It also woke me up to the idea that without a support system, at least one person in your corner, that road is grim. We need to show ourselves and go through the shame and vulnerability of allowing another to see all the parts of who we are. We need people to show us parts that we can not see in ourselves. Allowing another to take care of me in that way was a big lesson. 

My conclusion for today, about this story, this part of my life, is that 12 years ago I was diagnosed with an incurable autoimmune disease. It started a big awakening for me. 

It gave me a breath of life, a spark of purpose, it destroyed me and kicked me down and it took me at least 10 years to build myself up to a place where I can now say, I understand what happened and why it happened, and I take it as a gift. 

The way my body is always telling me where I am and where I need to look is beyond magical for me. I am still learning and practicing how to take care of her. Especially now, since I have entered the new magical phase we call peri menopause. 

My challenge is more mental than physical now. Sometimes when I don't feel good I still hear those doctors telling me to prepare for wheelchair life. And I question and feel anxious and suspicious. Maybe they were right, and I am sick after all. 

And then I take a deep breath, I remind myself of why I am here, and what I came here to do. I don't ask myself to be healed or fixed in a way that only my worst inner critic would approve.

I keep learning new things about myself and go to therapy to be guided. All those years ago it was a big hit, this year it was a relatively small hit, but that also allowed me to look at another part of our healthcare system, which is mental health care, but more about that later. 

Love Navaya