Surrendering to Chronic Dis-ease

Aka – letting go of something that won’t let go of you.

On the couch, again, all appointments, work and arranged catch ups cancelled for the next 3 days – and on it goes. This has been the cycle for the last 9 months. It gets to you after awhile – I’d be lying if I said it didn’t. This is why when I have a good day, its full steam ahead. Trying to fit in a week’s worth of exercise, catch up with 3 friends, run extra errands and get to work an hour earlier than expected. I take advantage of feeling good by perhaps having an extra coffee, some chocolate, skipping a meal and getting by on a little less sleep; pretty much acting ‘normal’ for someone in their early 30’s. Then a few days later, like clockwork, I wake up with what I call ‘cotton wool head’. Can hardly open my eyes, my ears feel weird and I feel like something is pressing against my skull from the inside out. Soon after when wakefulness kicks in, joint pain, headaches, fatigue and the aforementioned everything I was looking forward to, cancelled. Not to mention the battle against depression that’s constantly peeping over my shoulder.

It’s hard to let go of the urge to fight back, to say ‘fuck you body’ I’m getting on with life anyway – but that’s what got me here in the first place, an incessant need to do. Not heeding to the little symptoms and suggestions through my body that perhaps I wasn’t living in the most optimal way. To release that urge to supplement or caffeinate myself  out of it, to instead sit still and trace back to what brought this on, and in the process let go of the resentment of not being able to be even a little bit reckless without major consequences.

Although I have yet to get a full diagnosis, I know something isn’t right, this 2 days on 3 days off cycle is getting tiresome and my ability to ‘keep going’ quickly draining. I’ve stopped researching all my symptoms like a full time job – I’ve done all the tests I can at this point, taken pills and have a long list of others tests and pills to pop that I’ll get to when the money comes in. Right now, in this moment, I can’t fight back or run away from my symptoms anymore. So what’s left? Surrender.

Chronic – persistent or long lasting in its effects and lasting longer than 3 months. It’s not going anywhere in a hurry so I need to learn to make dis-ease my friend – a warning sign that I’m heading off balance and not a foe that’s consistently getting in my way. Perhaps these debilitating days of forced relaxation are preventing something greater within me busting a fuse. Maybe the forced day off work I curse is really a blessing in disguise. I certainly don’t pay attention to the subtle things anymore: changes in digestive patterns, waking up with the shakes, muscle twinges, dark circles under my eyes, loss of appetite, weight loss, rashes and break outs, constant headaches and that feeling that I really need to sleep instead of watching one last show in whatever mindless TV series I’ve downloaded or spending yet another 30 minutes on facebook before bed.

"The simple intention to surrender your control is all you need to experience miracles". – Gabby B. Surrender – to stop resisting, to hand over... Something bigger than my will to solider on and be a ‘doer’ is at play here, and the more I fight it, the further away I get from any answers. It won’t let go of me, so I have to let go of trying to control it. I need to stop, sit and listen before I get to this point. 

I need to surrender to the early signs of being run down instead of waiting for the next day I’m immobilised by fatigue. I need to stop compensating for lack by trying to add more… More coffee does not add up for less sleep, more facebook time does not add up for lack of connection with real people, more doing of unimportant stuff does not make up for the lack of meaning I get from my job, more TV does not add up for the lack of purpose I often feel. More does not make up for less. Surrender. Let go of what I can’t control. Pay attention. Shift the things that take away my energy and fill that space with simple things that give more back. Maybe, this time, I’ll catch on.