Showing posts with label Recovery. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Recovery. Show all posts

Tuesday, April 26, 2016

Healing doesn't mean the damage never existed

Photo credit :Warriorgoddesstraining

I promised myself and others that I would continue my blog even though I no longer advocate at the level I once did. I can tell you right now, that in itself has been a huge eye opener and a spiritual awakening. 

I allowed myself to be controlled by a disease(s) for over 25 yrs and consumed myself in literature, research all just to prove that something was wrong and it took so much of my life away. 

I didn't enjoy anything about life whatsoever, not even people. I wanted everyone to stay away from me and stop talking because I was so angry at my situation and in pain that it was all that I could focus on. I pushed so many people away because I felt they didn't understand and really how could they? 

December 24th 2013 I started to take back my life.  So looking back at it now I feel that this was Step 1. I felt enough was enough and so I wrote my surgeon this letter and mailed it out. (See the link here) it wasn't long before I got an answer and was in his office. 

Step 2 was May 9th 2014 in which I had a radical hysterectomy done along with excision surgery (See the link here)

Step 3 was happening between 2014-2015. It was a long horrible point in my life and going through a hysterectomy with no HRT is bound to make it that more eventful. I lost my job of 10 yrs, had major surgery, lost feeling in my arms for 3 months, started a new job, separated from my husband, sold my house, bought a condo, and had a fire in my condo all within this time frame... Bad luck people might say but I was meant to go through all of this in order for me to let go and move on. By the end of 2015 I knew it was time to get help for what was mentally plaguing me (Complex PTSD). I wanted to be free from anything that was making me feel negative or think about my past. For me triggers have always been there and I constantly lived in the past. I tried so many different types of therapies but I knew that there had to be someone out there to help me. My sister suggested EMDR therapy.

Step 4 took me to my first email to this therapist. I searched online for one close to me and since I have actively wanted to get help and not just say I wanted it, I let the spirits guide me to this person. One stood out so I took that as a sign. I emailed her my story and told her that I didn't want to waste time discovering who I was and just get to the point of what I need help with and why and go from there. At first I thought she was going to think I was a nut job but she responded back fast and was comforting and inviting. I saw her for about 15 weeks straight and during this time my meditation increased and my focus ultimately was to relive and let go of all the pain and suffering. It was all very overwhelming and during this time I was drinking a lot and taking Oxycodone just to numb everything that was going on. I told her that I wanted to take a break over Christmas because I had so much stuff to get done and I needed a break. I never did go back to her because during that time I had a good couple of months to process everything that had happened in my life and that moves us to the next step. 

Step 5 started at the beginning of this year. I was feeling lost, confused, underpaid and just not wanting to live. Well I wanted to live but not the way I had been. This is when I wrote this post here (See link to post) I knew it was time to make the change with my medications, my drinking habits and the fact that I had wasted 25 yrs sick, looking for a cure, looking for someone to listen to me and trying to figure out why the hell I was dealt this deck of cards. I was making myself sick just thinking about it. I mean literally. I didn't want to talk about anything that related to illness, I just wanted to move on and live the next years of my life (however long that may be) not feeling sorry for myself and actually stop letting all of this control me. So I took charge. 

Step 6 I had made great progress (See link to post) I didn't think that I would make it to this point. I was determined and goal focused to come off all the medications I was on and currently only have a sleeping pill which I am working on coming off with my doctors help. This will be the hardest challenge to date for everything because I have been on it for 4 yrs and it has saved my life. I went over a decade only getting an hour sleep per night and which possibly started this whole cycle of pain (which was diagnosed as Fibromyalgia in 1997) For the last 5 years my endless nights of worrying stopped and I feel even without the sleeping pills they have stopped so I know it is time to figure out how to make myself tired on my own instead of taking a pill. 

Step 7 I am going through as I write this post. I am back to reading, meditating, eating a lot healthier and have goals in mind. I am looking to finish off my Endometriosis Biography (which couldn't have happened if I wasn't at this step) that I started 3 yrs ago, I plan on starting off with just stretching and simple palates and yoga and hopefully be down to a more reasonable weight by the end of the year. I am not thinking any further than that because I know baby steps are the only way I will make it there and from past experience. I feel free mentally. I am not depressed anymore, I have no anxiety, I feel hope, I am so mentally strong at this point and I know I am never looking back. I am looking for jobs that would suit my personality and lifestyle rather than the stressful jobs with no purpose like I have always done and I am staying single. I love being single it is so empowering and peaceful. I haven't ruled out love in all of that but it just isn't what I am looking for and if I am meant to find it I will.


The key for me in all of this was that I started to cut toxic people out of my life, I stopped looking at negative posts and would only focus on positive inspiring things. I would always see people say that they hated people who posted things like that because it was just a cry for help or something like that but it was the complete opposite for me. I was retraining my brain to focus on positive things and people and it took a long time for my brain to be able to digests all because naturally I had a negative attitude and thought process for so long. It wasn't easy but I tricked my brain. I know that sounds messed up but I did. As soon as I sense a bad vibe/aura, posts or people are negative around me, right away my body changes. I know I can stop it, I have that control no matter what is going on around me. I had to change. I mentally had to see that there was more to life even if I am in pain. The less I focus on it the more I live in the now. I am present. I am here.



So that is all for now and thank you for all of those who inspired me without even knowing it during the last two years.

Thursday, October 9, 2014

Come out come out where ever you are..............


It has been some time since I have posted. It has been a rough, rough, rough 5 months since my Endo surgery + hysterectomy. I battled all the emotions I never thought even existed. I was so low I could barely even function properly on a day to day basis. 

The first two weeks after surgery I had really bad hot and cold flashes. One of the hot flashes I had I thought I was having a stroke or an aneurysm it was so scary.  It just consumed me and it started from the waist up out of no where. I was not even hot, It was almost like something was taking over my body like some huge rush of something. It went all the way up to my head and again I still didn't feel hot I felt panicked, and I felt like my face was on fire but I wasn't feeling like it was a hot flash. I know that I am not explaining it quite well but it was something I can't explain. 

I had two cold flashes and I thank God they never happened again because I was not expecting those nor did I hear of them prior to all the research I had done. I would awake as if I was lying outside in the middle of winter with no clothes on. Nothing could get me warm. I tried multiple duvets with a heating blanket and it didn't even touch it. I felt this lasted longer than the hot flashes did. 

Here I am 5 months post op and I have about 5 hot flashes a day and I am so lucky because they really aren't as bad as they were or how bad they are for others. I am having overall major body pain and I have yet to start an HRT because I wanted to wait at least 6 months but I am even now thinking I want to hold off and not do it. I am still researching on what I want to do. 

At the beginning of August I awoke to my arms numb and swollen with severe pain. It has been two months and it took a good month for the swelling and numbness to go away and now I am left with tingling and numbness and awaiting a CT scan. I am not sure why this is happening. I thought possibly it could have been a side effect of surgery due to positioning when they are operating on you as I have heard of many people getting frozen shoulder after surgery so I still do even know what is going on. 

I should say that for me and my life, if its not one thing its another. 

Well I am all caught up for now... Oh ya, one more thing... I started a new job two weeks ago :)