Owning it
I thought I'd get better after that treatment programme, I did, but only to a level that then got poured in to working more. So I pushed that stuff aside, I was angry it hadn't been a success and in denial that it hadn't been a success in almost equal measure.
Then work got even more stressful and I thought I'd give it up, work part-time in a completely different world and get better (though by then I didn't have CFS/ME anymore, I was just 'burnt out' and needing time to sort out my head and home.) Just as it was dawning on me that giving up one job might not be a miracle cure and that I might actually still be poorly and I might not just get better in a miracle of perfect timingI went on retreat. I thought I've found a whole circle of kindred spirits and the magic feeling of being me that can help me get better. I did, again only a level up but I want to say that here. Write it out so that I remember this. That this illness can be shifted. That I can feel gloriously HEALTHY not just for a few hours, days or weeks but all the time.
Level by level I am getting better. I would say closer but it isn't a destination. There's a healing circle to be closed and then there are healthy practices that will keep it whole.
Taking The Magic of Myth class with Elizabeth I made some big discoveries about how much I have been trying to just keep myself safe and denying myself a chance to explore dreams I've locked away like the most cherished childhood one of being a writer. Things I need to own. A lot of that need to protect and wrap in cotton wool and hide is tied up in this illness that creates barriers to what you can do and more subtly what you think you can do.
It's been with me since adolescence but I had five gloriously healthy years at the start of the noughties. In all the learning in these past nine years I have a wealth of tools to help me get better without trying the latest alternative health therapy that I read about, work out where I can go for treatment, fret about the expense, read about the debunking of and just want to give it all up. I have everything within me to heal and I just need to keep practicing getting out of my own way.
So when I feel like I don't know what to blog about because a row of sock knitting, a walk in the woods or a few square centimetres of tapestry don't seem like much I'll keep coming back here because this record of quiet days and glorious ways is of immense importance to me. This healing path all started when I picked up some sticks and string and I am going to keep walking it. Step by step. Stitch by stitch.
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