Some people believe that ‘everything happens for a reason’. And i’m torn on this, so i’m writing this post both as an exploration for myself and so you can see how atleast i’ve seen this true to a certain extent with my lyme.
Before all this I was pretty aimless. Sure I was in the best shape of my life, in the top percentage of my gym. But I didn’t feel good about myself, I didn’t really have any friends or anything I was working towards, i’d just constantly be trying to meet more women hoping that would solve my issues and make me feel good about myself.
Then I got lyme, and I literally had to STOP.
I couldn’t workout for a while, lost most of my of strength and muscle. When I started again I could barely do anything. I also literally couldn’t be with women due to my lack of energy and some of the physical symptoms I had.
It was incredibly frustrating, with my biggest coping mechanism gone. It brought up some intense emotions, insecurities, hopelessness, helplessness, feeling like if I could just be with a woman it would solve everything.
Which it never did before, but it’s funny how your mind tries to convince you!
During my healing I had to face all of these intense emotions, these coping mechanisms. The best way i’ve found is Inner Child work, which really allowed me to connect with and feel these emotions so I could discharge them and reconnect with myself.
I started to feel better about myself, more consistent. I started to become more comfortable socially and found new friends. This time unlike the friendship group I lost a few years ago when I lost weight (this is a whole other story alltogether) these new friends are much more positive, supportive and good for me.
I now actually enjoy socializing for the sake of it, and connecting with people in a way I didn’t before.
The second important thing is that as difficult as dealing with lyme has been, it has also brought me to my own path. I’ve learnt so much from it, initially as a way to help myself, to get better and be able to function again.
I know how much it sucks to be fatigued, have all kinds of crazy symptoms, barely any energy to function, low strength, shutting down at even a little bit of stress and other frustrating symptoms.
I know how much you just want to get better so you can go out and do things. I don’t want others to be as stuck and confused as I was, all of this has brought me to my path of helping others to heal.
I’m still working on my recovery, and still have bad days. In fact the last few weeks have been pretty bad which is partly why i’m writing this to remind myself.
Plus also for me to explore.. this one symptom that i’m really trying to get rid of but is very stubborn and seems to be showing little indication of lessening.
I’m wondering if it has a message for me, is there something else I need to work on?
I did tune into it and find a deeper message behind it, which is a process I cover elsewhere.
Once again it goes back to my adoption and abandonment. Almost everything i’ve explored goes back to this at a deeper level.
I’ve had enough of working on it!
But all I can do is keep going.. and I encourage you to do the same. If only our healing journey could always be going ‘up’ to improvement. But it can’t, there’s always going to be these challenges along the way. And as these other challenges during this have helped me grow, this can too.
What does your illness or symptom have to tell you at a deeper level?