jyotisdream

[jyotisdream]

‘Til Death Do Us Part

I was texting with my ex-husband last night. He had asked me why I seemed sad lately. I told him that starting a career from scratch (after being married to him and supporting his career for 15 years) was stressful. He said he was sorry. Then I reminded him that it was January 5th, which he knows is a personal holiday I take for myself in an attempt to find empowerment on the anniversary of getting raped by one of his best friends while I was a Senior in High School. I also mentioned that the anniversary of my father’s suicide was approaching. So, yeah, I had my reasons. 

But the last text I sent went unanswered, and the next 24 hours I spent in a free fall of obsessive thinking. “What should I text him? It hurt my feelings that you didn’t respond to my last text. Oooo, that will make him feel guilty, that’s good. No. Let it go. I’m not his responsibility anymore. Most people can’t handle my grieving. I don’t even know that I can handle my grieving. Let it go.

Low and behold, after holding my tongue and my trigger happy text fingers for about 24 hours, he sent a kind text saying that he was so sorry he had missed that one, and he proceeded to send a series of photographs of our daughter in the hopes of cheering me up. He also sent a really pretty one of the city-scape on his way home from work that night.

It was the most kindest I’d felt from him since a blow-up argument we had about our daughter some months before.

Then I received a series of emojis without a caption. I sent a reply asking if our daughter had sent it to me from his phone. He responded that it had come from his two year old daughter, the one he had with his new, younger wife. The child neither my body, nor fate couldn’t bear to bring to life myself. 

He quoted her, “I want to send silly faces to Danka,” the nickname I am endearingly given by all toddlers who seem in agreement that there are one too many syllables in my name.

Then he sent an audio message of her sending me a kiss. It was adorable, as you can imagine. That girl is ridiculously cute.

I wanted to send an audio message in response. But, at the same time, I wanted to respect her mother, in this moment. And hold healthy boundaries for everyone involved. I know my daughter prides herself on my loyalty to her, as she remains my only child. And, I feel nervous about bonding with my ex-husband. There’s a fine line between getting along, and still feeling attached.

Thinking back on the complexities of the situation, I thought to myself, “I didn’t sign up for this.”

Then I remembered my wedding vows. The whole, “‘til death do us part, bit.” And all the rest. I remembered my undying love for him at the ripe old age of 22. I remembered meaning those words as I said them in front of a crowd full of our closest friends and family, some of whom have now passed. My intentions were steadfast and made in earnest. I remembered taking a moment of silence for my long-since-departed father, and feeling his presence there that warm, dry Saturday afternoon in the New Mexico high desert.

As it turns out, I did sign up for this. I signed up for falling in love with my daughter’s half sister. I signed up for taking her and her step brother on vacation together, despite a chronic pain disease that made the trip more than a little challenging for me. I signed up for making peace with his wife and trying not to harp on the fact that she was a fitness instructor when they met. Sorry, I think I might have just done it again. Old habits die hard.

And he signed up for it too. He signed up for hearing me express my grief, and my inability to hide my feelings enough to keep him out of them. He signed up for helping with my car and giving me advice on which cellphone to buy long past the time when that was in his purview.  He signed up for showing me compassion, when it is solidly a choice, not an obligation.

The truth is, when you choose someone, with all of your heart and soul, and you spend a good portion of your life with them, and you bear children with them, and they see you through thick and thin, and all of your struggles are challenges you survive because you go through them together, whatever happens is everything you signed up for. Even if that “everything” includes divorce. Even if that “everything” includes all of the things that come after divorce, like unforeseen health problems, or arguing over how to raise a child together when you aren’t together anymore, or connecting with children who you hold no genetic or legal tie to, and yet, willingly allow yourself to become bonded with, for life.

As I face building my own career, coming into my personal power, owning the freedom and weight that comes with single parenting (half of the time), and doing the best I can to embrace the world of dating (good god, we’re all such broken fools), I’ve come to understand a few truths:

1. My child is the single most important person in my life and no matter what happens, she’s my number one and always will be.

2. My ex-husband actually trumps (boy, that term is really ruined, isn’t it?) all other men in my life, in terms of loyalty, for the rest of time. Not because I won’t potentially love another man with even more complexity, depth, and longevity than I loved my first husband, but because whoever that man is, he will never be the father of my child and therefore will never be permanently bound to me like that one particular man is and will be for the rest of time.

3. You never know what the future holds, so hold onto your hat, because you’re in for a bumpy ride. This includes all of the curves your own life will take, as well as, all the turns your ex-partner’s life journey includes as well.

You are, after all, bound, in the eyes of god, as you understand god, until your last dying breath. I’ve been to enough family holidays to see my friend’s parents show up to the same event, thrown by their adult children, arriving to spend the most important days of the year with, you guessed it, their ex’s. All for the sake of the children. And they do it with bells on. Or maybe the bells are for the grandchildren.

All in all, I have so much to be thankful for. I’m deeply grateful for that conversation last night, even though it also made me feel like I was being stabbed in the heart and f’d in the brain. I’m thankful for my ex-husband, and I’m glad I picked a man to marry and bear a child with who I can stand being intimately connected to for the rest of my entire life. It doesn’t always work out that way. And I’d like to think it’s what’s best for our daughter. I know she loves it when we act like grownups.

But I will leave you, dear readers, with a word of caution: be careful who you marry, or even who you have sex with, for that matter. You never know who will be in your life, permanently. And sometimes those seemingly small choices become the biggest decisions of your life. None of which come with takesy-backsies.

Peace and love to all of the families in all of their forms. And strength to the hearts of those who choose to follow their vows, long after they are legally broken.

[jyotisdream]

Acquiring a disability is a bit like getting home to find there’s a gorilla in your house. You contact the approved and official channels to get rid of infestations of wild animals (in this case, the NHS) and they umm and aah and suck air in through their teeth before saying something roughly equivalent to “what you’ve got ‘ere, mate, is a gorilla, and there ain’t really a lot what we can do about them, see…” before sending you back home to the gorilla’s waiting arms. The gorilla in your house will cause problems in every part of your life. Your spouse may decide that (s)he can’t deal with the gorilla, and leave. Your boss may get upset that you’ve brought the gorilla to work with you and it’s disrupting your colleagues, who don’t know how to deal with gorillas. You’re arriving for work wearing a suit the gorilla has slept on. Some days you don’t turn up at all because at the last minute, the gorilla has decided to barricade you into the bathroom or sit on you so you can’t get out of bed. Your friends will get cheesed off because when you see them - which isn’t often, because they don’t want to come to your house for fear of the gorilla and the gorilla won’t always let you out - your only topic of conversation is this darn gorilla and the devastation it is causing. There are three major approaches to the gorilla in your house. One is to ignore it and hope it goes away. This is unlikely to work. A 300-lb gorilla will sleep where he likes, and if that’s on top of you, it will have an effect on you. Another is to try and force the gorilla out, wrestling constantly with it, spending all your time fighting it. This is often a losing battle. Some choose to give all their money to people who will come and wave crystals at the gorilla, from a safe distance of course. This also tends to be a losing battle. However, every so often, one in a hundred gorillas will get bored and wander off. The crystal-wavers and gorilla-wrestlers will claim victory, and tell the media that it’s a massive breakthrough in gorilla-control, and that the 99 other gorilla-wrestlers just aren’t doing it right due to sloppy thinking or lack of committment. The 99 other gorilla-wrestlers won’t have the time or energy to argue. I have known people spend the best years of their life and tens of thousands of pounds trying to force their gorillas to go away. The tragedy is that even if it does wander off for a while, they won’t get their pre-gorilla lives back. They’ll be older, skint, exhausted, and constantly afraid that the gorilla may well come back. The third way to deal with the gorilla in your house is to accept it, tame it, and make it part of your life. Figure out a way to calm your gorilla down. Teach it how to sit still until you are able to take it places with you without it making a scene. Find out how to equip your home with gorilla-friendly furnishings and appliances. Negotiate with your boss about ways to accomodate, or even make use of, your gorilla. Meet other people who live with gorillas and enjoy having something in common, and share gorilla-taming tips. People get really upset about this and throw around accusations of “giving up” and “not even trying”. They even suggest that you enjoy having a gorilla around because of the attention it gets you (while ignoring the massive pile of steaming gorilla-turds in your bedroom every morning and night, not to mention your weekly bill for bananas). The best way to deal with these people is to smile and remind yourself that one day, they too will have a gorilla in their house.

I found this on another website.  I couldn’t find an author listed but thought it was too good not to share.

Enjoy.. 

(via chronicallyawesome1)

Amazing.

[jyotisdream]

Gearing up for the Last Big Battle

I don't want to lose my bladder. I just talked to my daughter on the phone and hearing her voice made me want to keep trying. I'll have to put my all into it. I'll have to say no to stress and ask for help when I need it.

[jyotisdream]

To Fight or To Grieve

I've been fighting to heal my bladder for about 10 1/2 years. Well, actually the first year I just suffered. But since then I've been doing everything I am able to do to Recover my previous body function, find Balance in my mind and body, and become free of disease. I have not tried everything yet. I still need to lose weight while strengthening the muscle groups of my gluts, pelvic floor, and abs. I have to eat as healthy as possible taking in as many vegetables as possible and do so for long enough that I'm able to see a difference. I need to establish a daily yoga practice. All of this is very difficult when I get up to pee 40 times a night and spend all day every day raising a 2 year old. I'm exhausted. I've been fighting for so long, I have no reserves of energy left. I have used up all of my resources including almost all of my faith and hope. I don't know why my experience with IC is so fucking severe, but it is, and no matter what I do, I can never quite shake the beast - certainly not enough to stop being a bladder cripple. I'm going to try bladder installations again. I didn't do it for long enough before to be sure they weren't really working. And I'm going to try to follow through on the list from above while I do this. Those are essential life style changes regardless of what happens with my bladder, but exercising in severe pain really does suck. If all else fails, and I don't know when to draw this line, but at some point I'm going to get a urostomy and possibly have my bladder removed. There comes a point where I have to let go. True, this procedure doesn't solve everything for many IC patients, but I have cut my pain back by at best almost 90 percent through all of my work with alternative medicine and I believe I can get the rest of the way there with the above lifestyle changes. But what I can't seem to get away from is the constant urination and bladder irritation. I could see so clearly when I recently discovered cucumber juice how irritated my bladder is and what pain is caused by that. I'm afraid I can't break that cycle. I can't rest and relax enough to heal the rest of the way. I don't want this to be true, but I am running out of steam. I don't know how much further I can go on. And I do believe a urostomy would solve much of what is left of my illness. If I do go in that direction, I will need to grieve for my poor damaged bladder. I will need to come to terms with letting it go. Right now I can't even think of it without feeling woozy. But I know that if I take myself through the grieving process, I could let it go and move on. I pray for guidance in the coming months. Please help me find the freedom and peace I seek. In the mean time I'll keep breathing.

[jyotisdream]

Peace

I vented pretty hard yesterday. Today my husband came home and I've spent the last hour and a half watching a movie BY MY SELF. It was great. I'm still by myself. In fact I can write these words without my thoughts being interrupted - such a rare pleasure for a stay at home mom, such as myself.

I still feel discontented about where I live and what the future holds for me, but I'm seeing the good too. Sometimes I want life to go so much faster than it actually does and nothing seems to come while I'm still craving for it to happen. But then, life also goes by so fast it blows my mind. This is especially true while watching a tiny person grow. So, maybe everything does really happen in good time.

I know I want to live in a place that feels like home. I also know I don't want to be broke anymore while doing it. I know I need to create things in my life that I can feel proud of, even if it's just a good healthy meal, or a walk around the block with my toddler and our new dog. I know I want better for myself -- better health, peace of mind, a calm heart. I have come so far with those things, but I'm not to the point of freedom that I seek, yet, so I must keep pushing forward until I do feel satisfied. Until I am at peace. Maybe that pursuit doesn't fit in one lifetime, but if it does I'm going to find it.

In the mean time, I hope for solid sleep tonight and enough focus to be present for the rest of the day, enjoying moments with my family that will never come again.

[jyotisdream]

Existential Crisis

I'm terribly homesick. In the worst way. I miss it in a way that makes me feel like I can't go on without it. And I can't fly. And I now live a 30 hour drive away. With our 2 year old that would take a solid 4 days. And back. I feel like I'll never be there again. See the mountains. Breathe the most perfect sir into my nose. Feel one with the sky. Be home. I woke up trying to figure out something to do, something more than stay at home momming, house cleaning, and self healing. I need something to focus on, something to create, something to bring me pride and a sense of meaning. When you combine these two things it means I don't feel I am where I should be or doing what I should be doing. Existential crisis. Maybe I'm healthy enough now to realize I need more out of life. Or maybe I've done this plenty of times before and I've never been and am still not healthy enough to do what I want to do with my life. It's hard to say because my standards for myself are always unattainable. Fuck standards. I just want to go home. I want to travel for awhile and be there, not 4 days in the back of my car sitting on a portable toilet. I want to have enough money to be there and enough money to travel away from there so I don't feel trapped. I want it to be what I remember and for it to remember me. I want to feel like I belong somewhere. While I'm at it, I'd like to go back to a sane mom who consistently treats me with respect and kindness. And so many other things that don't exist. I'd like to go back to the night I was raped and kick that asshole in the face. I'd like to burn down the house I was molested in. I'd like to walk around downtown in the snow and have a warm fireplace to return to. And while I'm at it, I don't want to fucking be sick any fucking more. I hate it. I hate suffering. I hate that I'm awake right now because my bladder hurts too much to let me sleep and I pee so often that I can't drift off to sleep. I hate being a sick mom. I hate not being a healthy mom. I hate how trapped I feel in the decisions I've made that I thought would bring me security and a sense of faith, the results of which are horribly superficial, and yet so much better than the horrific certainty of suffering that I grew up with. I'm not satisfied. I can't die like this. I don't want my life to keep going this way either. I feel trapped on the tip of a giant Island surrounded by pain, suffering, and endless disappointment. And I'm out there all alone. I feel solid in the fact that no one has felt my pain. No one understands my motivations. And nothing I do ever completely frees me from physical and psychological torment, knowing that my body is broken. I used to be beautiful. But I didn't feel beautiful. Now I feel like I'm wearing a fat suit hiding behind a mask doling out self consciousness like a condiment. I am lost in body and soul. And in a matter of minutes my baby will wake up and I'll have to go back to pretending that everything is OK and I don't feel cracked at my core. But for the moment I'll just keep peeing.

[jyotisdream]

Baby Steps

I'm having a horrible time following my diet. I'm acting like a rebellious teenager wanting to everything but what's on my new diet. Every time I try this drastic of a diet change I eventually drop it. This time I'm stalling before I really start. Then I give myself such a hard time, which feels very self-abusive, then I lose confidence in the parts of my life that were working before I tried to reach a new level. I get emails from Said Desilets who is an amazing woman specializing in empowering women through their sexuality. She sells jade eggs and a book on how to use them. I intend to do this but haven't started yet :( Anyway! She sent this today and it's exactly what I needed to hear: "Baby steps are faster than giant leaps... Why? Because with those little steps, we take all of ourselves... And when we rush, we inevitably override a part of ourselves. It is this 'over-looked' part that will make us take a few steps back. So slow down and trust that you are right on time. Celebrating Your Succulence, Saida"

[jyotisdream]

Holy Cucumber Batman!

Attention everyone with IC!!!

I recently discovered huge relief from pain and frequency by drinking of fresh juice of a peeled and seeded cucumber. 

I was amazed at how well and how quickly it worked. I keep the juice of one or two cucumbers in my refrigerator and sip on it throughout the day, especially before bed. I understand that celery is supposed to be very good for inflammation, so the two go nicely together.

I'm not suggesting anyone try this without consulting a doctor and all that jazz, just wanted to let everyone know that it works amazingly well for me and I'm really excited to share the great news!

[jyotisdream]

New Me

Many years ago I bought the book, "Solving the Interstitial Cystitis Puzzle." Each book has their take on this ungodly situation. This author supports following an alkalizing diet to "recover" from IC, as she did herself before writing the book. 

At the time I was extremely ill, and in constant pain. I was almost entirely house-bound, desperate, lonely, and depressed. The one thing I had figured out for sure was that stress increased my symptoms. I skimmed the dense text of this book as best as I could and concluded that the magnitude of such a drastic diet change was more stressful than I could physically handle. In some ways I was too sick to get better, unless I had been fortunate for someone else to cook all of my meals for me and make the complicated decisions that I couldn't make for myself. That would be ideal - that every sick person had a healthy counterpart who could fill in for them in all of the ways they were unable to take care of themselves. But reality doesn't provide such a thing. For years I have wanted my husband to be that for me, and I know that he has in the ways that he could. But as I regain my health and some of my independence I am coming to understand that there are many things in life that no one can do for you. You have to make certain choices and take certain actions for yourself. It's part of being an adult. It's part of spiritual growth. It's necessary.

So, years ago, I vaguely tried to follow an alkalizing diet in that I printed lists of foods in columns, green on one side, red on the other. My kind friends attempted to follow these lists when making dinner for me when I could come for a visit. I found it all overwhelming and eventually it fell away entirely and I went back to eating whatever I wasn't sure made me horribly ill and just tried to get through the days.

What I understand now is that I didn't get it. I didn't really read the book. I didn't buy a juicer. I didn't understand the principle of, "vegetables, vegetables, vegetables!" as a friend of mine put it who has been following the diet for the last two years. Through a series of events, I decided I was finally ready to try again.

Unfortunately, as soon as I picked up the book and fingered through it, the stress from before overcame me and I threw a total fit. I cried. I screamed. I almost threw the book in the trash. I decided I couldn't do it, but then came around to decide I would try my best. The ideal diet calls for 80% alkalizing foods, and 20% acid forming, but I thought I would aim for 50/50. The fact is, I haven't been eating a lot of fresh vegetables, certainly not regularly, so my husband pointed out that any improvement was a really great accomplishment.

Part of me agreed with him. Part of me thought it was shit.

I want to be better. I want to eat whatever I need to eat to get better. I don't want eating healthy to feel neigh impossible. I don't want attempting to change my lifestyle and having difficulty doing so to make me feel like a horrible person.

Then I found inspiration in the oddest places. I texted with a friend who has IC and she said that her doctor told her that food doesn't change in the body, as in citrus which is acid on it's own is said to alkalize the body and he doesn't believe it's true. So she doesn't try an alkalizing diet. And she said not to stress out. And I know she meant well, but somehow what she said let me understand that it's time for me to stress out about this. It's time for me to work past my stress about it and make it happen. I'm healthy enough now to handle the difficulty. I know now that an increase in stress used to cause muscle spasms in my pelvis instantaneously, so avoiding stress was paramount. I also now know that through vaginal massage and relaxation techniques, I no longer suffer from those spasms and I don't have to let the fear of future pain stop me from healing now.

Then I texted with another friend who explained that she couldn't afford fresh fruits and vegetables, but instead was eating processed food including beef and boxed cookies. "What a bunch of bullshit!" I thought, but I remember being in her place. I remember eating what I wanted and justifying it with whatever reason seemed plausible. I see that she's making excuses, and I know that I have done that plenty of times before and I know that the time has come for me to grow up and take care of myself. I'm ready to take responsibility for my actions and accept the fact that what I eat DIRECTLY EFFECTS MY BLADDER, even when I've been too sick to see the obvious connections.

So I'm on Day 2 of my new diet and I'm doing the best that I can. I realized and wrote down the things that have prevented me from succeeding before so that I could work with my weaknesses instead of ridicule myself for them. They are as follows:

1.By the time I'm hungry, I'll eat anything. I totally break down. 2. I hate cooking when I don't have a plan or the necessary ingredients to create a functional meal. 3. I get really impatient with myself and I find changing my diet to be absolute torture. Anyone who says otherwise is insane, in my opinion, but maybe it's harder for me than other things are that I have already worked through.

So this is my plan to deal with those weaknesses:

Design a days diet ahead of time.  Buy ingredients to follow that diet for at least 4 days.  Start cooking BEFORE I'm hungry.  Cook every meal at home with limited exceptions.  Be patient.  Combine w/ daily exercise.  Remember you are doing this from a place of love. Reference blogs for ideas and inspiration, add new recipes slowly when it doesn't feel overwhelming.

These are the ideas I came up with for a possible starting diet:

*Grapefruit w/ a little honey *Fruit smoothy: fresh or frozen berries, almond or coconut milk, protein powder, cinnamon, flax seed meal *Lunch: large salad w/ organic chicken, turkey, wild caught fish, tofu or tempe- lots of veggies w/ coconut, flax seed, grapeseed, or olive oil, lemon juice, brags & apple cider vinegar for dressing.  *Dinner: raw or cooked veggies w/ lentils or sweet potatoes, try to include ginger and/or turmeric.  *Snacks: fresh fruit, nuts & seeds, sprouted peas.

So far, I've started the day off with a smoothly. That's going great and my sweet daughter has helped me make them and had some herself! Parenting score! Yesterday I had some magical cucumber juice and today I tried the recipe in the book and made juice of chard, cucumber, celery, carrot, and an apple. It tasted much better than I expected. For lunch, I've had a salad with some protein. For dinner yesterday I made scrambled eggs and sauteed some chard. My husband made guacamole, and I ate some with my eggs but avoided the corn chips. Oh, but I did eat it with a white tortilla with butter. And we ended up eating a really late second dinner in which I ate a sausage on a whole wheat bun with bell peppers and enjoyed every moment of it.

That's the journey I'm on, or the beginning of another chapter anyway. I'm sure it will get easier and harder. But I know I can never go back. The healthier I get, the healthier I get. Period. The knowledge I've acquired and empowerment I am finding will be gifts that keep on giving for the rest of my life. So when I have bad moments, I cry and scream, but at some point I'll say, "Fuck It!" and keep moving forward, because I'm sick of excuses and I'm sure as shit sick of being ill.

[jyotisdream]

Namaste

I don't remember if I wrote about it, but I attempted to go to a yoga class in my new city a few months after we moved here. I now live in one of the two most superficial cities in the US. I had such an amazing, transformative, and healing experience at my previous yoga studio. Moving here, I knew I needed to keep yoga in my life, but I was directly comparing where I had been to where I was going, and it caused me to fall into a mass panic attack. The new studio doesn't have the grace and simplicity that I was used to. When you add that on top of the fact that my IC has created anxiety in me when I 1) try to leave my house, 2) try to do something to improve my health, or 3) attempt any form of exercise, the mass panic that ensued seems perfectly predictable. But being full of anxiety and avoiding going to yoga isn't doing me any good. 

So, yesterday I planned on going to a restorative class at the same studio (there aren't a lot of choices around here unless it's hot yoga, which is of course the only kind of yoga I don't have any plans of ever doing). I asked for encouragement from my friends on fb. They were so kind and supportive. But I almost couldn't let my feet walk through the door, so I tried to imagine going there to see them - that they would be there in spirit if nothing else so why not imagine that they would be there in person. A dear friend just recently became a yoga instructor, so I got myself through my fears by telling myself that she would be my teacher.

On the way, my daughter and I, now over 2 1/2 years old, were talking about having a happy thought to refer to when going to the doctor. Then my husband asked me what my happy thought was, and I burst into tears. I told him I was imagining my friends there and I tried to feel their virtual hugs and I closed my eyes and reminded myself that I am never alone.

I went inside, this time I didn't freak out and leave before class started. I settled in. I talked to the teacher about my health problems. We discussed me leaving during class to use the bathroom. I had some pleasant interactions with some nice women. Luckily the restorative class is not where the young plastic girls tend to congregate. The instructor closed the blinds and used a calming voice and explained that when the body is relaxed, it can heal. 

Ahhhhhhh......

For the first time in ages, I let myself relax. Really relax.

It took awhile. I probably peed about 5 times in the first 20 minutes of class. But then, my bladder calmed down. It stopped feeling red and started feeling neutral. I was then able to relax into each long pose, mostly not think about my bladder, and only get up to pee in between poses, sometimes only because I needed to to get through the entire next pose. And twice I did two poses in a row without having to pee! I rocked that shit!

I teared up several times during the class. It's very emotional for me to set my responsibilities and worries aside and do something kind for myself. It's emotional to do something specifically focused on improving my health. But about half way through class, something else happened. I smiled. It came to my attention that there was a water feature in the room. I smiled as I thought about how they set up a stone fountain in the room so that the sound of running water in the background would support relaxation and tranquility for most, but for the girl with the bladder disease, it was possibly torturous. And once I noticed it, I couldn't unnotice it, so I just kept hearing that constant trickle loudly in my mind. My smiles started to turn to laughter, and I almost had a full on laugh attack, but I did my best to maintain the silence in the room. I settled into gratitude as I realized how much my body and mind needed to laugh - not just cry - and I was thankful to find humor in the most random of places.

I am so grateful that I made it to the studio and I went in the class. Honestly, if those were the only hurdles I made it through, I would be thankful. But I also had a really good class and my body thrived in the experience. I had several layers of emotional release, and the physical release of letting go of tension in my bladder feels like the ultimate in self love. The thing I always say about recovering from or managing chronic illness is to listen to your own body. My body always tells me to do yoga. I'm so glad I finally listened.

Namaste.

[jyotisdream]

Anger

I'm spewing anger today. It is oozing from my pores and pooling on the floor below me. It is infecting the air I exhale creating a mist of darkness clouding around my head. I'm almost too tired to be this angry, but I seem to be focusing all of my energy of creating or allowing the flow of anger to be at the center of my creative potential. 

I'm tired of being angry. I've spent nearly 4 decades being full of it. And although it can instigate some forward momentum, it is just as capable of perpetuating stagnancy. And right now, I can tell it is at the center of my pelvic pain. It is the source of all of my pelvic pain, if you ask my angry self. And those at the source of my anger are to blame for my pain - now and in the past. 

And I hate them.

I hate my mother.

I hate the man who molested me for years.

I hate all of the other loser people my mother brought into my life who sucked my life energy out until I was a shell of a person - a person left to survive in a shell of pain.

There is beauty all around me, in my current life. And abundance. And potential. But when I feel this angry I cannot see those things, just like the white orchid is invisible under the darkness of night.

Whatever I do with my life, from the moments that make up the days, to the years that make up the eras, I'm sure I wasn't supposed to be wasting my time on hate.

If I could purchase anything from Amazon Prime, it would be forgiveness, but instead I numb myself in middle class malaise with the over consumption of toddler toys and household accessories.

I feel disconnected from the things in my life that are woven from love and togetherness because I'm tangled up in the things that stemmed from being mistreated, abused, and abandoned.

I'm having a shitty day. 

But I have hope for tomorrow. At the very least, there is always the peacefulness of knitting.

[jyotisdream]

New

Greetings lost friends. My computer died while moving in the summer and I have been unable to express myself in this electronic medium. Thankfully, I'm back!

Tonight is New Year's Eve. I love new year's eve. I don't often go to big parties or have any huge thing going on. In fact, growing up I usually spent it alone (with my mom in the other room), at home, watching the ball drop on the TV. No champagne. No kisses. No friendship. No fireworks. But as an adult I feel more empowered, even though I usually spend the night at home with my husband, and now with my daughter too.

This Eve, I am still with the family for the holidays. As much hoopla as they put into Christmas, the opposite is true for New Year's Eve. Apparently it's all about Jesus and nothing about hope, change, and growth. So... I find myself very angry. 

As I sat down to write I thought, "My bladder is sore. I think I might be angry. I wonder what it is about? I hope it comes up as I write." And sure enough it is plain as day to me now that I am angry because I feel alone in the celebration of the turning of the year. And that is symbolic of how alone I feel in general on this o joyous of vacations. Lucky for me, I love most of my by-law family. But the ones that I don't understand and don't understand me... it's in a big way. Or at least that's how it feels. Oh well, whatever. Onto the new year!

So there are a little less than 4 hours left of this, 2013. Some reflection:

The year opened with a recent move, fleeing the comfort of our home when we realized it was full of peeling lead paint for fear that our then 1 1/2 year old would be harmed by it. The move was good and bad, but unfortunately it turned out to be far more financially taxing than expected, partly because we moved to a different town with higher rent and the expense of a long commute. On the other hand, being in that other town allowed me access to health care that I couldn't receive in the podunk town my husband worked in, and the freedom to find an amazing pelvic floor PT, a super awesome counselor, a very good NAET practitioner, and closer access to one of the better IC specializing Urologists in the country was amazing. And as poor as I was, I am forever grateful for the help I got from all of them. I am also forever grateful for 2 of my dearest friends who sponsored those health visits for the parts of the bills not covered by insurance that were beyond my comprehension to cover. As much as this year has been challenging, it has been equally full of angels of mercy and kindness in my life.

Throughout the end of last year and into this year was the painstaking process of my husband applying for a new job. It is an all consuming, frustrating, and draining process. In January he came in second for what I thought would be his dream job. It was devastating. And it seemed partly to slip through his fingers because his great friend and mentor died a little over a week before his interview. Looking back, I see the flaws in the plans I had for moving there, and all that stands out is the ache in my heart for the loss of one of the greatest people the world has ever seen.

So that was January.

The Spring and Summer were spent with me attending weekly medical visits and really trying with all my might to whip this IC in the ass and send it flying out the window, down the hill, across the street, float out to sea, where it could evaporate and return to space. In some respects I won that battle. I found a drastic reduction in pain as well as a reduction in frequency of urination (although it never got anywhere even close to normal). And as much as I'm not solidly healthy yet, the work I did this year catapulted me into the next level of healthy and doing that gave me hope to complete the rest of my journey. Fuck Yeah.

In May my husband got word that he was the proud owner of a new job in one of the hotter of the urban cities in America. I was excited about the ocean, the heat is something I couldn't comprehend until we got there. We have lived there for 5 months and it has been a whirlwind of stress. Our landlord is totally insane and has made our lives hell. We were graced with the ability to buy our first house, partly to get away from him and all of the other insane landlords, so 2014 will mark the year that we move into our first fully private space -- and I'm excited!!! I've never lived in a home my family owned in all of my life, and it's going to be goooood!

So this year has stressed me and left me feeling drained, but it has also been an incredible journey of healing. Accomplishments both I and my husband have made are laying a foundation for a prosperous future, and I do love living near the ocean.

I wish everyone out there a new year of healing and hope.

Happy New Year!!!

[jyotisdream]

Still Here

I'm still here, but I have felt lost for a bit. I had an intense move. Our new landlord is sketchy. I am feeling pretty good, physically, but even that brings it's own mental challenges. Parenting is chaffing, but also great. I could say the same about marriage. Healing too, I guess. I love spending as much time in the ocean as possible, and amazing I've been healthy enough to do so. I started this blog to share my experiences in hopes of helping others. My phone is messing up. I'll have to finish this later. Peace

[jyotisdream]

:(

For a long time I was using this blog as a journal. As with right now, I can write in it in the dark while my daughter sleeps, which I can't do with my paper journal. But for awhile now I've been too overwhelmed to express myself much at all. I haven't been venting, I haven't been writing, I haven't been calling a friend. I feel like a squirrel packing away emotional nuts for winter, or when I have the time and space to deal with them, which ever comes first.

I visited my counselor for the last time yesterday, and I told her how I'm not being able to access my emotions or express them right now. She suggested that I try to let them out as much as I can and allow myself to grieve the loss of leaving the city I've lived in for many years and moving to a new one. She suggested I do a ritual to acknowledge and release what this place has meant to me before I go. I want to do that so badly, but as the storm of moving tosses me around, I don't know when to find the solid ground to do that.

I feel deeply alone right now. My husband and I are fighting off and on enough to make me feel insecure about going to him when I need my best friend. And my actual best friends are far away and feel unavailable -- which may be mostly an assumption made of my part, but the reality remains that I need to reach out more than ever, but can't figure out how to do it. It worries me, being that state. I know it is when people do bad things to themselves, like my friend Blaine. At the very least it is not a pleasant way to live this particular day of my life.

I'm so overwhelmed right now. I was in some pain a couple of hours ago, and it seems to have passed well enough, but it scared me, and made me feel vulnerable and afraid. I fear a lot right now, and it isn't a nice place to be. 

Ok, self compassion. What should I do? I just keep trying to go and go and go until this whole thing is over, but I think that I'm not going to make it. I'll try to breathe, and be in the moment. I just feel hollow.

[jyotisdream]

Moving, Accidents, and Breathing

My life is pretty chaotic right now. The move we are undergoing has been epic on the insanity scale. It was really hard to find a house, it was even harder to figure out how to pay for it. We had movers, we didn't have movers, we had movers again. My sweet baby girl hurt her foot during a brief moment of fun at the playground and has been in a cast for almost 10 days (which equals no sleep for anyone, by the way). We had a giant yard sale (ick), lots of doctors appointments, and now we are entering the home stretch -- pack up delicate stuff and stuff we need to do on our own, and everything else to prepare for the movers to come next week. We are also going to the ped ortho doc for baby's foot tomorrow -- on my birthday. 

One thing... stress = tightness and pain in my pelvis and bladder. For me it does anyway. So in the midst of all of the emotional and mental stress, I need to stop, focus on my breathing, and as my PT helped me to figure out today, do some stretches as well. I tend to pull into myself when I'm in pain, and it doesn't help in terms of trying not to be in pain anymore. So, I will lay on the bed, and with pillows to support my knees, let my legs lay open in "butterfly stretch" while focusing on my breathing, and find my damned peaceful center and shit. Ha! You know, I'm always so hard on myself. My thought process is, "ok, do the stretch. You are supposed to do the stretch. Ok, it should take all of the pain away. It's supposed to take all the pain away..." If I've learned anything about healing, it's that the intentions are what are most important, leading to action, including all the patience you can muster as the intentions and actions do their work. The whole thing is funny really because laying down and focusing on my breathing, or setting my to-do list aside to do some knitting, while focusing on my breathing, is exactly what I need right now! Oddly, I'm finally coming to terms with the fact that my illness is a guide that is helping me through my life, rather than hindering me, or only hindering me.

So, wish us all luck. Hopefully, I'll have my toes in the sand looking out at the vast open sky as cool water washes over my toes before I know it. Until then, as usual, I breathe.

[jyotisdream]

Don't Be An Asshole, Blaine. Take it Back.

In the wee hours of the morning of Independence Day, my friend Blaine committed suicide. 

His last post on facebook the night before was, "I'm dying here."

When I found out, I wanted to leave a post for him that read, "Don't be an asshole, Blaine. Take it back."

But suicide is the big-can't-take-back, isn't it? It's the big fuck-you-guys-you-didn't-listen-to-me-that-I-was-hurting.

And it always happens alone.

I've been on a roller coaster for the last few days. The first night, I couldn't sleep. Yesterday I tried to get all Zenned out and accepty. Today I'm angry as shit.

In fact, I'm too angry to have much to say. But I know I need to talk to someone. That hasn't been working out and I want to lash out at everyone and everything. So I'm here. Talking to myself. Maybe someone will read it and wish better for me, and that's amazing, but I really need a hug.

And I wish Blaine were alive.

I don't even care what he'd be doing, I just want to know that he could come back. That fucker. He was one of the most awesome punk ass people on the planet. The bitch of it all is that everyone loved him more than he loved himself. It's easy to forget that a lack of self-esteem can be fatal. And people always seem to forget that depression is a terminal disease. 

I hate that he was alone, and felt that loneliness and disconnection so deep down to his core that he had to end this life to get away from it. Maybe that's exactly what suicide is -- a forced reconnection with the spirit of life. Whenever a soul gets so lost that they can't find their way back to the connective thread that ties everything together, they have to go back to the starting line and begin the race again.

Venting session over. Time to read "The Little Engine that Could" for the umpbillionth time... and try to let myself sleep.

Goodnight sweet friend.

[jyotisdream]

1st Yoga Class

Well, I did it. I nearly had a panic attack before starting. I showed up early and kept having to pee in the car every few minutes because I was so afraid. But I went to my first Iyengar yoga class, and I did it.

It was hard. It was a gentle class with two other students and it was hard. I'm used to doing yoga on my own at home and I can stop if I'm in pain or bored or distracted. This time I tried to stay focused and even when my bladder was sore, I would sit with how I felt for a moment and watch as it changed. Letting go of pain through an action other than urinating is new for me and it's a huge thing for me to be working on.

By the end of the 80 minute class, my bladder was very sore, but I tried not to be afraid of that. Being a bit dehydrated from a combination of the heat and exercise could explain that. I also allowed myself to move my body in ways I've been petrified to try for a very long time.

I'm transitioning from a stagnant body to a moving body, and that is a very hard thing to do.

Ah, hell. I did it. I've dreamt of the day when I would be healthy enough and financially able to participate in a yoga class again. I waited years for this moment, and it's come true.

Somewhere deep down I'm happy, but on the surface I'm sad and teary. I don't want this to be such a struggle. I just want to float through each phase of my recovery, but an element of struggle remains no matter how far I've come. Why is that, I wonder? Is it the state of human existence? Is it the state of my existence? Whatever it is, I look forward to a time when everything isn't so over dramatic and I can just be.

Fuck yeah, I went to yoga. I wore pants and everything. I sat flat on my butt which is something I've feared doing for a long long time and in my distress I forgot to tell the teacher about it before class. And it worked out. I breathed and I opened and I released and I look forward to countless times in the future where I continue to do those things, always pushing the boundaries of where my body can go -- letting it excitedly lead me like a puppy on a leash. I hope next time I'm not so afraid, but I intend to show up either way.

Amazingly, after the class, my instructor let me know that she has a chronic hidden illness as well. It's amazing to realize how many spoonies  there are out there and how you can never take the experiences of those around you for granted because chances are we all have more in common than we could ever imagine. From out of my focus on my own health, I was reminded that I am not alone and that I am strong enough to do this and to keep pushing my boundaries forever forward.

Namaste.