image from ProHealth.com
I am going to write my awakening story in two parts. In the first part I’d like to talk about where I was at that time of my life, how low I had fallen and why. Then in the second part I will tell you about what changed all that, how I awoke. I don’t feel like I want to muddy the awakening with so much back-story but it’s of greatest importance to know the fall before the rise!
My awakening was both a figurative and literal occurrence that happened about five years ago. I was at my lowest ebb. I was trying to deal with so much going on in my life while coming to terms with the loss of my good health.
My teenage daughter had been diagnosed with fibromyalgia, she had been experiencing “growing pains” occasionally throughout the years but these pains were different and coming often along with other associated symptoms, I could immediately see the similarities to my own health problems. It was something I had worried about when she was born, she arrived with very loose hip joints where I had arrived with completely dislocated hip joints but she hadn’t experienced any early problems walking or pain and so it was something I forgot about. She had the usual host of tests, including lymes disease because we had both been bitten by tics a couple of years earlier. Fibromyalgia is diagnosed by process of elimination. When she was given this diagnosis the bottom fell out of my world. Here I was in my 30’s living like an old lady in a care home and I had perhaps sealed my daughter to the same fate? This happened at a time she was just leaving the teenage miss bitch behind, boy was she a handful at times but we were all growing closer again. My husband and I were trying to support her in an upbeat manner, attempting to sell her on the it’s great to know while you are so young, you can be more prepared than I was, live healthily, make changes now so you will stay healthy. The thing is this illness does not always work this way, it affects the young and the old, the healthy and the unhealthy. It is one of the reasons it is so hard to deal with and still such a mystery. What helps one person will not help another. She became increasingly anxious and began to have panic attacks, not wanting to leave the house, not going in to school and pushing friends away in favour of solitude in her bedroom. She lost all confidence, became depressed and lost. I’m happy to tell you that she’s back in control now.. She is amazing! Her school offered to let her stay on an extra year, usually fees are required but they waived them. She never failed any of her exams but a few were lower grades than she had hoped meaning they did not total up enough points to get her into university. She had tried her best but the anxiety and cognitive problems that comes with fibro worked against her on exams days. Anyway, she worked her butt off that year and secured a place in her first choice university. So last year she began year Zero of a fine art degree course.. four more years to go. She works part time in a local supermarket at weekends to help support herself. She has fallen in love with a nice guy who treats her so well. She’s working hard for uni but is also enjoying having some social life again. And healthwise? Well she deals with the fibro pains when they come, painkillers and heat pads and when it’s really bad some tears. She deals extremely well with her anxiety issues, rarely having panic attacks now.
My son was in his first year of secondary school, around twelve/thirteen and was having a really hard time. He was diagnosed with Tourette syndrome at around age nine, followed by Aspergers, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and more. He was encouraged to write a speech and stand up at an assembly meeting and talk about Tourettes and how it affects him. In some ways it was very freeing for him, people understood why he would act weird sometimes and just accepted it thereafter. Letting his teachers in on his secret made class time less anxious for him! The downside was the negative attention, the pointing, the whispering and the laughing. Being branded tic-boy and losing some he had considered friends all the while trying to cope with and get his head around worsening and numerous newly developed tics. Hating not being “normal” at a time that peer group acceptance is so important. Although he had support from the school and the child & adolescent mental health Services things kept slipping downhill for him. Frequent accidents and dislocations led to being told he had hypermobility syndrome, getting him to do the physiotherapy was a nightmare and in the end he had to stop taking part in school gym class, further alienating him. He began to refuse to go to school, often faking sickies, we tried banning all entertainment other than books all day and night if he stayed off that day. We tried offering rewards, we tried it all but our teenage bundle of hormones, frustration and anger just didn’t care. He became anxious and had a very low mood. he was investigated at the sleep clinic for night terrors which turned out to be night panic attacks, he had never needed much sleep to get by, four to five hours a night, but now he limped by on one to two. He began to play video games a lot more than we liked. He said they gave him a break from the tics in his head, when we asked him what he meant he told us that for years every word he heard and every word he saw he would mentally type out on an imagined keyboard, he didn’t have to do that when he gamed. It became a struggle to ever get him off his games. Things were terrible; there was no communicating with him, only yelling matches. It felt so selfish and hurtful; days when he was most frustrated he would be looking for a fight, breaking his frustrations on us. I began to feel very trapped, that I was once again stuck in an abusive relationship and it was with my son, someone I could not love more if I tried! He seemed blind to my poor health and everything else going on, but I was wrong! Working with his CAMHS psychiatrist finally began to pay off a year or so later when he began to talk about what had really been going on. My poor boy has been trapped in his own hell but that’s for another day, what I want you to know is that he is doing so much better. He can still be challenging! He still does not go into school every day but the school works within his limitations and he always has work he can do at home through the pc. With a 50% attendance rate last year he still passed all his exams with flying colours; he is studying and his attendance is up so I have great hopes for him this year! He still struggles with games addiction, which is a clinical diagnosis, the worse his mood the more time he spends on them. However he has partly turned it to his advantage by focusing his education towards a computer/gaming career. He talks with us about any problems now and is happy spending time in our company again, yes he is on the other side of the teenage mess now and I can only hope things keep going well for him.
I had been at home and out of work for over two years at this point. I have worked many jobs over the years.. figurine painter, waitress, retail, barmaid, childminder and then nursery assistant. You see I felt like a slave in my childhood home, feeding, changing and generally looking after my 5 step-siblings whom I loved dearly. I resented doing it but I was also good at it. I had a natural nurture instinct. It never went away but it took me half my life to realise I had a gift when it came to childcare. That to do it now was my choice not my task and it was a revelation! I adored my job! I still miss it so much! I had begun studying to be a fully qualified nursery nurse, the course was provided at no cost through my job. You had to have 12 hours working in a nursery environment to qualify for the course. I worked 26 hours a week but when myself and my colleagues contract came up for renewal they had slashed my hours down to 7, knowing we would have to agree to make up the hours voluntarily to stay on the course. I was furious but not having joined the union there was nothing I could do. I was struggling with the course which was strange for me as that was something I’d always found easy. I was having to re-read and re-re-read pages over and over again before taking in any of the information. I was forgetting the names of co-workers and children in my care. I was always so so tired. My son would come around and meet me when the school closed and we would walk home together, once in the house the frustration game would start! The angry feelings in him that had built up during the day while he suppressed his behaviours had to come out and so he would throw a tantrum after almost every school day as soon as we got home. It was like a magic door that changed my child into an animal! All I wanted to do was have a lie down and cry! I was also noticing my pain levels, the same pains I’d had in childhood were returning and as much as I tried to ignore and pretend this wasn’t happening it was. You expect aches and pains when you work in a nursery, all the chairs and tables are at the height best for three to five year olds. Leaning over these or sitting at them was awkward, playing in the wendy house, on the climbing frame, on your knees, up and down, up and down, slipping on spilled water ( or worse!), the kick back began to build up a little stronger bit by bit. So when the new contract landed I had a choice to make, do I let them do this to me? I decided it was also time to go to the doctors and that was the start of my fibro journey. The tests began. I talked with my husband, how I felt I wasn’t being the best mother I could be as I was so tired and sore. Could we cope on one wage? Maybe not but he still supported my decision to quit. I don’t regret quitting, my health was declining and it was taking more and more from me to soldier on and it was the best decision for my son especially as things were about to go haywire from him too but that doesn’t mean I don’t miss it!
Give me full health and I’d go back to working in early education in a heartbeat, paid or not! Two years out of work and my husband was working three jobs, while playing mother and nurse, and those ends refused to meet. Instead of luxuries like birthday presents going on the credit card the grocery shopping and petrol started creeping into those statements! I was not entitled to incapacity benefit as my national insurance contributions had fallen short for the requirement. I was not eligible for income support as my husband was working and I could not claim job seekers allowance because I was not well enough to work. We had already been in debt and were bailed out by my granddad and his wife, not only were we struggling to be able to pay them anything back but we were heading into a situation that we might have to beg for help again! His mother was helping us out almost weekly with shopping money. This had been eating away at my husband. He couldn’t work any harder and his own health was slipping. He had to give up the small job first and a few months later the other small job. We’d had a scary time years previously when he was so exhausted no matter how much he’d slept. He would take bouts of being ill for a week, not cold/flu ill, no appetite, sore head, slurring words, weakness, dizziness and nausea. He had tests at a sleep clinic and we found out he had sleep apnoea. He was tested for MS, brain scans showed dead spots in his brain. It turned out his severely high blood pressure was causing something like mini strokes.. rare and actually had been studied in Europe where the yearly brain scans of pilots had revealed that those with high untreated blood pressure would experience small spots in the brain dying off suddenly. His blood pressure resisted treatment and some of the side effects of the pills were horrid. It was all finally under control, steady blood pressure and using a cpap machine nightly worked wonders but he was over stretching himself and I was terrified that he would get really ill, perhaps a large stroke would steal him away from us. I had made the wrong choice, I should have been out there helping, bringing in a wage and at home I should have been cooking, cleaning and sharing the hard work but I couldn’t. I was a failure at being a mother and now at being a wife and then my health got worse again. The children were looking after me when my husband worked. The youngest would do his best when my daughter went out to work. She needed an income of her own to buy the things we couldn’t get her and she wanted to pay some of it as “board” to help out! Over the course of a few months I became completely housebound, my legs refusing to obey me and the pain soaring. I kept falling, my leg would just collapse under me and I’d hit the floor hard. The children would do their best to help me up but in the end they would have to phone their dad at work and he’d have to come home to help. He worked a good half hours drive away so it took a chunk of his working day. After a particularly bad fall it was sit down and talk time again. We looked into all our options and agreed to apply for a benefit called disability living allowance. If eligible at middle or high rate then my husband could claim a carers allowance. In the meantime he gave up his work to care for me, claiming income support and on the understanding they would re-hire him the moment things got better. He was good at his job, he didn’t love it, he always had a family first attitude but he was happy there and he was in line for a great promotion. I was a drain on my family, I was ruining their lives!
My husband was now my nursemaid more than a life partner. We couldn’t be intimate, it hurt too much. I needed help with everything and I mean everything! Being mid thirties and having to ask your partner to wipe your backside when you are not paralyzed, have no limbs missing and don’t even have a clear diagnosis or understanding of the illness. I felt disgusting, more and more as weight piled on from my comfort eating. I was already large because of comfort and secret binge eating, food has always been my crutch and I leaned heavily on it during all our problems. I could not have felt more useless and I spent most days in bed. when my pain got bad at night and I would ask my husband for help to get downstairs and then tell him to go back to bed and I’d call if I needed anything I would sit and cry my heart out. I’d heard my mother tell me often enough that I should never have been born, that I was nothing and would amount to nothing. I could see it was all true. I was inching my way closer to death with each day. I even checked to see if suicide was covered in my life insurance policy. I could only see my family better off without me. Suicide wasn’t a new idea to me, I tried twice before as the only way I could see out of my trap and I had come very close to succeeding. I was sure I could do it properly this time, I was certain I would lose my husband, how could he bear to stay with me. I should free him to find the person he deserves. We had been through a rough patch in our marriage, the drama and divorce of a very close couple, the strains of life and an early miscarriage knocked us off track but we had come through it stronger. I didn’t see a way through now. I saw my children coming to hate me and a husband who would not want me soon enough and I could not face that so that was the state of my mind. I had reached my lowest of lows. Wallowing in self-pity and grief I had given up on life because I couldn’t see past the shadows.
Please remember this is what was.. not what is. I have had a long day so I will return tomorrow to add part 2 and to answer my comments.
The awakening experience challenge by Barbara Franken
http://memymagnificentself.wordpress.com/2014/01/31/january-challenge-our-awakening-experiences/
January
1st Barbara – http://memymagnificentself.wordpress.com
2nd Paddy – http://paddypicasso.wordpress.com
3rd Emanuel- http://emantable.com/musings-of-a-table/
6th Julianne – http://juliannevictoria.com
7th Sarah – http://theskycladwriter.wordpress.com
8th Shree – http://heartsongsblog.wordpress.com
9th Dace – http://mywaytotruth.wordpress.com
10th Korinn – http://www.korinn.com
11th Sindy – http://bluebutterfliesandme.wordpress.com
12th Stefanie – http://dancingwithstefanie.com
13th Mick – http://meticulousmick.wordpress.com
15th Megan – http://mychroniclifejourney.wordpress.com
16th Pat – http://patinspire.org
17th Marga – http://lifeasimprov.com
18th Kimberley – http://kimberlyharding.wordpress.com
21st Heather – http://wildflowerwomen.wordpress.com
23rd Sue – http://suedreamwalker.wordpress.com
24th M… – http://seeingm.wordpress.com
25th Brian G – http://middlepane.com
26th Dotta – http://dottaraphels.wordpress.com
27th CW – http://sunflowerrosecw.wordpress.com
28th Laurie – http://lauriesnotes.wordpress.com
29th Debra – http://ptero9.com
30th Linda – http://lindalitebeing.wordpress.com
31st Michael – http://navigator1965.wordpress.com
February
1st Leigh – http://bluegrassnotes.wordpress.com
2nd Shaman – http://shamanictracking.com
3rd Joss – http://ccwow.wordpress.com
4th Jenna – http://jennadee222.wordpress.com
5th Shelley – https://livingwithshadows.wordpress.com
6th Elisabeth – http://almostspring.com
7th Michael – http://embracingforever.com
8th Lehua – http://amusingspirit.wordpress.com
9th Aleya – http://alohaleya.wordpress.com
Living with Shadows 
My prayers for you. I am so sorry you have gone through so much. Thank you for sharing your life and your shadows. You are a very strong lady. I am glad you followed my blog so that I could get a chance to meet you.
Thank you, we have much in common and i like your writing, i have a lot to catch up on though! i am glad i have the chance to get to know you.
Wow, you have me in tears, gosh, you have been through so much. I know those feelings, your brave to put them out in to type for all to see, courageous 🙂 I think them, never typed them, your being selfless to allow others an insight in to emotions and situations that certainly in my life touch me greatly. You know about my son with tourettes/tics, I have just had both my children assessed, one still waiting for his results. The youngest has dylexia, dyspraxia, auditory processing and possibly ADHD, but my eldest has those rages it goes in spates and it happens when he comes home and is directed at me. It’s so exhausting dealing with it when your hurting and I avoid stress, because it triggers the pain so much more yet you just cry inside because you know somethings causing it and you want to help them, but how? We have had the computer issues too, it’s very addictive for anyone, I’ve had this myself been a gamer for years, finally off it but i remember how it made me feel to be dragged away from my escapism. And the typing, I used to play the invisible piano all the time, I obviously ticced as a child but people didnt know what it was perhaps, then when i learned to type, watching tv became horrendous as i would find myself typing what everyone was saying, i can type 100 words perminute but believe you me it wasnt the most relaxing experience. I can empathise with my son but you do feel an outsider trying to help. When my kids say if they had a wish it would be for me to be better or their eyes light up when I’ve tried something new and they think I am all ok now, i go off somewhere and cry, but they always know. My heart goes out to you, but you know your valued, life sucks at times but your children love and need you as does your husband. Thank you for being so incredibly open xx
I’m sorry i brought your tears out but then i am glad i was able to touch you on that level. it was an emotional piece to write and yes it was difficult to admit to such dark feelings but i do believe that the more people talk about their personal experiences with mental health problems that the shame and stigma can be taken away in time. it sounds like our children ahve an awful lot in common! my son has auditory issues and has sensory overload syndrome, dyspraxia was looked at but it turned out to be hypermobility syndrome. i know those rages are exhausting to deal with.. we had a breakthrough at one therapy session many years ago where he said the reason he directed his frustration at us was because he knew we loved him no matter what. that the rage had to come out and he onlt felt safe to let us see that side of him. he had such a fear or rejection that he suppressed much of his behaviour around relatives and at school. another time he told us that when he left our home he became someone else. he wouls spend his time outside as this other person, supressing his tics etc, all the time the frustration building up inside and once he came home he was safe and had to let it out. that changed things for us. knowing his reasons and how hard it was outside for him meant we could let him rage against us without getting as hurt and angry anymore. oh he still gets to us at times and it is still tiring! i have never spoken to anyone before who has this mental typing tic, i can only imagine how difficult that would be to deal with. my son amazes me at times that he copes as well as he does! anyway i must go as i’m heading out to my first hydrotherapy session. i am working on a blog all about my son and i will let you know when i’ll be posting it. if you’d like to talk privately about anything feel free to email me at livingwithshadows@aol.co.uk
Thank you so much for giving me your email. It’s eclecticoddsnsods, actually it’s Justine, I have 3 blogs, I should link them altogether as I forget which one I am one when I reply/comment to people. Don’t worry about making me cry, it was having an empathy for what you have been through, emotions are good, I always used to say if someone was nervous before something, it’s the nerves that drives the passion, when your’e not nervous there is no attachment to what you want to achieve hence no nerves, so I always cherish awakened emotions even if sad at times.
Yes the typing tic is exhausting, I can’t say I don’t ever do it now but it’s really not often, but then I guess now I am blogging my fingers are getting exhausted enough. I would also hold my breath when doing stuff like that but not realise it, until I gasped and people looked at me and then I wondered what I was doing.
I am going to write about both my sons assessments, I’ve been meaning to, I think its a whirlwind in my mind I am not sure it would come out on to type making sense at the moment but I will give it a try 🙂
Sorry i didnt reply to this particular reply before, I simply lost it and have been tryiing to work out with my non techy skills how to get back to something as I wanted to be at the keyboard rather than my phone to type properly to you.
hugs xx
Ah Justine, thank you! it’s great to have a name. i know your blogs now but having a name is better. There’s not enough empathy in this world, really the cruelty astounds me! empathy needs a kick up the backside and sent out to circulate again!
it is such a fight to get my son to leave the house, he never makes it the full 5 school days and i understand how bad it must be for him but at the same time he’ll become a recluse if not pushed and education is important. he also has a breathing tic but not holding it. i am glad you don;t have to stand the typing tic as much these days. i would be very interested to read about your sons, but just when you are ready. i have so many blogs in writing stage i hardly know which one to do! i flit about and end up getting nowhere! i get more done the days i’m too tired to type and ask my hubby to help me! i’ll dictate while he types and he won’t skip around from one to the other but will take side notes for me.
i get lost on here all the time so don;t worry! i am currently trying to find out if i can put some writing onto a category header page, like an introduction before where all the blog posts that go with the header list. it drives me crazy being such a beginner! anyway thank you for getting back to me.
I wish I knew about the header thing! Sounds like a good idea. I know there are lots more tricks on wordpress that I have yet to discover.
Re the typing tics, the one thing I would say about it is, as I try to look to a benefit wherever possible, even if hard sometimes, that is that I won college record for speed typing, 100 words per minute, I probably do more now, but a pus no? LOL My eldest has tried to justify his time on minecraft by telling me it has improved his typing so much more, it did make me chuckle, but actually when I watched him it has improved!! Mind you that wont give me reason to let him on it for hours. 🙂
it is such a complicated site, the wealth of options, widgets, settings, tools, etc just boggles the brain. i am slowly learning, i do enjoy it, giving the old brain something to chew over!
your speed record is amazing! my typing is very halting and i make a lot of mistakes. i have a general memory of how the keys are laid out but i don;t type properly, i use the first two fingers of each hand.. when i started it was just one finger of one hand and was so so slow! i would like to learn to type correctly but i think it would be hard to unlearn, forget, my own way now. still old dogs can learn new tricks! i love how creative your son got for more minecraft time!! my son adores minecraft. he makes incredible buildings, sky cities and underground mazes full of traps. The actually got a small game credit.. while the game was in beta his building skills were noticed and he was asked if he would do some building for them! It was a few years ago now. these days he doesn;t play as much as he is too busy on his xbox and i’m too busy on the pc!
Wow. What trials you have been through. I hope writing this was liberating.
Thank you Kerry, it was difficult to be that honest but yes it was liberating to admit just how bad things had gotten at that point.
Hello, It’s eclecticoddsnsods on my other blog, my pain blog. As you know I’ve been a follower of yours and just got nominated for the sunshine award, which I would like to nominate you for aswell. The details are here:
http://itisalonelyplace.wordpress.com/2014/02/07/lighthouse-award-so-chuffed/
big hugs
Thank you, that was really lovely of you to include me! i will get on top of this in the next couple of days! thank you for the link,, i knew i had it but now it’s bookmarked so i can get to it easier.
Hi, I have enjoyed reading your posts part 1 and 2. I wanted to say that I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia at age 12, chronic fatigue syndrome at age 17, and degenerative arthritis at age 18…plus a whole boatload of other things since then (I am now 24), including bipolar disorder, panic and anxiety disorders, degenerative disk disease, hyper mobility syndrome, hypothyroid, costocondritis and heart valve problems/tachycardia. I am so glad she is doing well! It is not easy living with pain like this at such a young age!
Thanks for your comment, i appreciate your understanding. I am so sorry about your health problems, you must be a fighter to deal with all that! i feel so lucky that i had a long period of years with few flare ups or symptoms, many do not get that break. they say pride comes before a fall and i’m kinda superstitious considering some of the bad luck i get at times but i am so proud of my daughter and how she has coped and pushed on through to follow her dreams. i know it was particularly scary for her to see what my life had become due to our illness, a frightening thought that her own future could be the same and also so hard for my kids to see just how ill i was becoming and how much it robbed me of a having a “life”. not easy to deal with when you’ve just been told you have the same condition but she really is doing well and getting on with life while coping with with her health issues and looking after herself.
I just realized that I neglected to mention in my first comment that my mom also has fibro, CFS, etc. She was dx about 3 years before I was, but she says that as soon as she was dx she knew what was wrong with me. I imagine it has been hard for her, for the same reasons it has been hard for you with your daughter, but it has also been nice that we can be each other’s partners in this. No one else in the family understands like we understand each other.
The hard part for me has been watching my mom slowly give up fighting to feel better. So I want to tell you, please don’t ever do that…for yourself and for your daughter. You have to be her example on how to be your own best advocate, how to take care of yourself, and how to never give up. She needs that.
I’m glad she is doing well! The thing about this disease is that there will be good times and bad times, and if she learns now how to never give up or let it get her down, she will be able to cope with the bad times so much better. I am always here if you or her ever want to talk! 🙂
Thank you, you have so much wisdon beyond your years! no i won’t be giving up again, i realise just how hard that was on my family to watch and i’d never put them in that situation again. i am so sorry that you have to see this in your own mum. have your tried to talk it through? i am sure you have! it is so sad but i can understand how a person ends up in that mindset. my daughter is simply enjoying life just now.. a nice new relationship after 4 years with a loser, setling into her city home and all the entertainment it offers and things going well at uni so she has let her health routine slip a bit at the moment but you have to cut loose sometimes!
Absolutely! I am a big advocate of not letting the disease rule your life! I go out dancing (when I wasn’t in quite such bad shape as I have been lately), I drink, I stay up late and skip a dose of my meds…etc. just not ALL the time. University/college is the time to enjoy your life and do crazy things, not let being sick keep you down! I’m glad she’s doing all that! She just needs to remember to do it in moderation and not let her health slip…
I’ll be keeping a close eye on her but so far she is being sensible about balancing it all out. only seen her really badly affected once and that was due to a uni project deadline where she had struggled with the subject matter and everything was very last minute. she only snatched an hour of sleep here and there for about 4 days! Paid for it after the project was handed in but then she had time to recover.
Yep, that’s one of those things that just happens sometimes. As long as it is not all the time and she makes sure to recover well afterward everything will be ok. 🙂
For some reason I read part 2 first followed by this part 1… IAM so glad I did because it would of left me feeling so lost and abandoned… instead of understanding that ‘to fall so deeply lost’ was a necessary part of your rise… Thank you so much for sharing with us all your journey and the knowledge of what love can do… the love you shared with your uncle, mirrored the love that is truly who you are, and was your saviour… and now awakened to this fact it is taking you on a new journey into wholeness… (You have probably seen, that as you heal, your children heal too…) Until the next time… Barbara x
With hindsight perhaps the way you read it should have been the way i posted it.. the fall was a powerful piece that had a big effect on those reading it. it was essential to understanding the rise though and i thank you for giving me the reason to write this.. i don’t think i would have got round to by myself for a long time. some things you don’t want to come face to face with very often. I still feel sad at how far i had fallen without even realising it was happening but the elation i felt after my awakening was wonderful, to finally allow myself to be free from fear and to give myself completely to my family. i could not have gotten through the dark places in my life without all the love that was poured into me by my uncle, my nana, my grandad and others in my childhood and i was only able to come to terms with my childhood with the love shown to me as an adult and although i loved it was always with a fear of rejection and of that love being withdrawn once i admitted i needed it. so this was a completely life changing moment for me and i feel blessed i was given this second chance at living without fear. as you say it was not just a healing for myself but for us all. best wishes, shelley
Reblogged this on Youth Of A Nation:Bent not Broke.
Thank you for the re-blog.
Thank you for following my blog. It has given me the opportunity of meeting you.it is good for me to meet others who are going through or who have been through, difficult times, not that I would wish difficult times upon anybody, but it does leave me feeing less alone with my challenges and it increases, or fuels my gratitude for all I have.
You have been though a great deal of suffering. For me, writing about how I feel has been one of the best things I ever decided to do. I relate very much to desire the addition of “writer” to your skills. 😊
My escape from reality was alcoholism; I am now sober 12 years within the rooms of AA. During the terrible times of my drinking our youngest daughter self harmed and suffered fom OCD (still does but manages it) . Then two years ago I was diagnosed with progressive MS, which the medical profession now admit I have had for 30 years but until now it was remitting/relapsing. They used to tell me it was all in my head – very long story. Wirhin 3 years I have lost the use of the whole of my right side; life is difficult but can be good, just different. On good days I can settle for that, on bad days… Well I write poetry. I have been through a particularly bad time lately withthe MS and my next poem will relate to this but I now also write about life in general, interspersed with poems of humour, usually involving my animals or grandchildren (five under 5!), grandchildren that is! 😊 the animal gang consists of two cats and a dog.
Christine x
hello Christine. thank you so much for coming by and leaving this comment for me, i appologise in how long it has taken me to reply, had a very difficult last few weeks but starting to creep out again. you have been through so very much, still are going through it and i have a deep admiration for your strength and the way your poetry has helped you cope. this blog is the first time i have shared my hurts, finally getting t a place in my life i have felt stable and strong enough to do so. the encouragement and support of fellow bloggers has been amazing, as you say not feeling alone in my struggles any more. my blog is read by close members of my family and it’s liberating to share this part of my life with them. for my daughter it’s an insight as to just why i was so over-protective, moody and simple why i did the things i did, acted the way i acted.
healthwise i have also been diagnosed only the past few years but have been told i have had this since birth. i also struggled with doctors who pinned all my health problems on having a difficult child and abusive childhood! I have fibroyalgia and a host of smaller problems. the fibro acts like a magnifying glass increasing the severity of the other issues and leaving me in a very poor state of health. i am much worse down my right hand side. though nowhere near as serious as your ms i certainly have an idea of what you are goinhg through.
i am ejoying your peoms very much, both the lighthearted and the more serious. i will be around to read through more of them asap! thank you again, lovely to “meet” you, best wishes, shelley
What courage to be able to share all of that. I am so sorry you have gone through so much. You had me in tears. I need to go read part 2 now. Thank you for following my blog, it is wonderful to “meet” you!
Thank you for reading my blog. I want to congratulate you on your writing journey and to wish you great health. And…congratulations on your sobriety! I’m a recovering co-dependent and have found writing to be great therapy. 🙂