I have been sick. For months. On and off, off and on. Maybe even for year, or more, I have been sick. And maybe it's time I really look at this pattern within myself. WTF. Actually, thinking back, it's been two years.
Two years ago this past fall, my son began displaying symptoms of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. My male ex likes to split hairs, it was more compulsive or more obsessive but not both. In either case when the shit hit the fan and my son started attacking me and my daughter and was begging me to bring him to his Dad's, my ex was too busy with his girlfriend and his new life to bother to respond. When my daughter also begged her Dad to come pick her up so she could get some sleep he told her she would just have to "work it out". See, he didn't really believe it was that bad. He is the sort of guy that if it's not happening to him, then it doesn't exist. So, after a few weeks of watching my beautiful son spiral into a kind of insanity where I could neither reach him nor withstand the cosmic gale that tore him from my side; by the time I had to call the ambulance to bring my out of control son into the hospital I was pretty fried. I was eviscerated, flayed and bleeding from my soul.
Prior to that, for a few brief months, I was on top of the world. I had broken up with a woman I had been living with who was so inconceivably selfish she hired a lawyer to sue me for money she had spent on herself out of her savings while I fully supported her. Bitch, but I was free of her. I had charted a life course for myself and had plans to enter a Shamanism studies program that, in two years, would be a great capstone to my years of esoteric studies and allow me to step out into private practice. I was in a casual relationship with someone I enjoyed going out with, yet I also reveled being single and living alone. I was on top of the world, strong and steady.
My son's battle with OCD was an earthquake that shook me from my center and buried me in the debris of my life. Blessedly, he stabilized on a small dosage of Zoloft. By March he was able to return to school and slowly began rebuilding his life. Looking back, perhaps I should have asked for a prescription for myself or seen a counselor. I did neither. I carried on jumpy, over care taking him, searching his every breath for signs that he would slip back into that hell of OCD, that uber sterile place where you could have eaten a full meal out of my toilets and found them cleaner than a plate freshly emerged from a sanitizer.
I kept going. My casual girlfriend lost her apartment, and I reluctantly offered to have her move in with me. She was my rock when my son and I were being sucked away. Our casual relationship took a hit of high octane and was propelled into another level before its time. I signed up again for my Shamanism program, then another. I wanted to get my life back, but at the time, didn't realize I was too wounded.
This is when I began to get sick. The week after my first Shamanis retreat, a lingering bout of sinus congestion and a debilitating cough. This pattern repeated itself over and over. I'd be well for a few weeks then sick. I sunk further into depression. I cut away all friendships, even one of over a dozen years. I just stopped calling. Drop by drop love and connection bled from my veins until I was dried and cocooned. I was receiving some spiritual healing from a practitioner who really couldn't help me or handle me. I was suicidal. I slipped further away, spending my time on the couch lifeless and numb whenever my kids were with their dad. When I had them, I roused myself, cooked, cleaned and listened. Nothing, no one is more important to me than my kids. I am not more important to me than my kids.
The summer rolled away. My practitioner cut me loose accusing me of not wanting to help myself. I knew that wasn't the case. I knew enough about healing processes to recognize one can only go as deep as the person who is holding space for you. And, through no fault of her own, she could not go there for me. My son moved onto fifth grade, I went to healing camp with a traditional Huichol Shaman. That may have helped. It did verify for me that my path was a bit more complicated than what I had first envisioned.
One warm afternoon, I went to the post office in my small rural town. I was riffling through the free book basket, where patrons drop off and pick up books in a friendly exchange, and snagged up a set of books about Maine. A day or two later in a Google search I found a woman Shaman who lives in Maine. I took that as a sign and contacted her. And so my true healing began. Through a series of powerful drum journeys, this amazing woman helped me reconnect with myself, she cleaned and bandaged the soul wounds I had endured over the last year and set me on my path of recuperation. As importantly she talked to me. And she let me talk on and on while she read my energy signatures. Thank Goddess is all that I can say.
I entered a six month process of healing on a very deep level. And now I feel the gaping wounds have been closed but still I am sore all over. My son, after a horrible experience in fifth grade with a militant teacher, is thriving in sixth grade. I am finally starting to relax, to truly believe he will be ok. I so enjoy his sense of humor, his warmth, his intelligence. My daughter has also weathered the storm and is self reliant, self responsible but not selfish. I am so lucky to have a close relationship with my teen. Yet, yet; I continue to battle these repeating upper respiratory challenges with deep rattling coughs.
My girlfriend and I broke up this past fall and she moved into a bedroom down the hall. She is generous, kind and helpful. I need her to move out. The first two weeks of June are the target date for that to happen. She needs the time to put some debt to bed and figure out where to go. I feel guilty, but I know I need to be on my own. Had I not been stripped to such a level of vulnerability and need I am not sure our relationship would have progressed to the 'move in' point. And I want my health back. I have always been very healthy but now I must look clearly in the mirror and see that I am not. I don't have a chronic disease or larger health issues, but something is knocking at my door over and over again- like a Jehovah Witness, bringing you the Good News you don't really want to hear. Time to answer the door.
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