WEEK #68 : Déjà Vu

I was almost relaxed enough to be able to drift into sleep, almost not enough. Not as bad as last night, last night I had an impending visit. I couldn't let go of the muscles that kept fighting to flight as my chest got increasingly tight and I couldn't breathe the air available to me. I couldn't sleep, I couldn't even lie down flat for a moment.

As it happened the visit was empowering, another step towards making life more comfortable and living conditions that don't constantly jeopardise my health. She was caring, kind, understanding, knowledgeable, compassionate, gentle and didn't look down on me for having a dog that barked, a lot, for being unable to bathe for 2 weeks. She took the quote for the works to give me a roof that doesn't leak and floors that are even and possible to clean. She listened a little to me, she let me briefly express, laugh and cry and didn't look uncomfortable or desperate to get away. She was gracious as I thanked her for listening and said how I'd better let her go. She promised to look into any other ways she may be able to help within the limits she can to find any avenues to help me back on my feet, back to breathing freely.

Déjà Vu, thank you for not appearing today. Not in that particular way I feared it could but rationally didn't think it would. I had spoken to her on the phone and she didn't sound like someone who would look down her nose at me. I suffered the distress, alone unobserved. Fear making me worse.

The worst case of déjà vu that I have experienced was during a work capacity assessment by the dreaded atos the first time I found out first hand just exactly why they are so feared by the many of the most ill and disabled. I felt like I was in a concentration camp doctors office being picked for working to death or immediate death. In the second round of being declared fit for work when desperately ill this time not just unfit to self care, that feeling I pushed to the back of my mind as being silly seems more close to the truth.

It has been 5 weeks so far this time of being horribly unwell. More reminiscent of 2004. Last time they admitted me to hospital in June I agreed on a shorter smaller dose of steroids. I had steadfastly refused in many extremely vulnerable positions before after what they did to me in 2004. The acne and compromised immune system had turned me almost militant. I pissed doctors off, the words of one of the doctors treating me in accident and emergency for not allowing them to treat me in ways they think best. It is hard to fight the system and hard to fight our own beliefs to stay in a state of love and appreciation when hungry, dehydrated and unable to walk the few feet to my bathroom and kitchen between here and there. Fear seems like an appropriate response that makes matters worse. I've been here before. I have come back to love and fell back in fear, so many times. It's hard to explain. I have felt such a failure, for getting so ill.

I know I have the final say in the matter of how anything affects me. I also know much of that decision is made in the unconscious realms. I meditated and went deep inside. I still can't explain yet if I can understand what I am fighting within I can make my life better. I have to try to put it into words to understand it myself, so I can maybe explain to those who don't know. Many people with stress related physical, mental and emotional health conditions are encouraged by the system to become more ill. Let's look at it a different way.

Taking responsibility for my own health and life, my responses to it, not blaming others or things for the way I am is not an easy road to take. I find it hard not to blame the repressive system that makes matters worse. I find it hard not to feel hurt and angry with those who blame me for the way that I am, some also denying that it causes me very real suffering with less ability to take responsibility for the suffering, it isn't fair. I blame me too, which makes those who blame me seem really cruel, yet I am cruel to myself.

All the methods I use have been applauded by some and ridiculed by others Opinion divided by experts and laymen alike. It has been a slow process. I have cried so much these last few weeks. Some say that is feeling sorry for myself and quite frankly why shouldn't I when life is being so tough. I have cried for all injustice, not just for me, where ever the vulnerable are being treated unfairly.

A few weeks ago an old friend told me I just need a kick up the backside and I said I need support. In a way we were both right. It is a shock when people you think will understand think you are not trying hard enough. It hasn't been that I am not doing my best, it became a blame game, cos it's really not fair. If I hadn't had moments where love has carried me through to find my ability to do what I need to do, in fleeting moments, I can beat all the odds.

The energy of thoughts is so powerful. Positive thoughts can create miraculous re-missions. Negative thoughts can cause disastrous relapses. It could all end in too early a death. Better the tears a release that often leads me to laughter as restrictions release me from the grips of possible imminent death. How cheerful this is, you may see my dilemma or think I'm a fool. I often think I don't care what others may think but I do.

People get rightly annoyed when these tactics are used against a poorly person to encourage their feeling of failure. I do too and it lowers my ability to reach self empowerment. That to me is where the worst irony lies, as can déjà vu, learnt responses so hard to break through. I hate to admit it but it is my responsibility to raise my positive thoughts no matter how low I get or how many people kick me when I am down or how many offer me a hand with pity or compassion. Compassion is best, it can be easier to see how I can get to well being from here. When it is given, it helps me give it to me too.

Ah Déjà Vu.
I have been here before.
I may be breaking through.
I offered my fear and fear came to me.
Please let this be time for my love to flow free.
Each time I do that the help and support that I need comes.
I can focus on progress not get stuck in the quagmire of how it can be.

I will find a way to get through this and to explain one day the way responsibility works for and against us.
Maybe.
Meanwhile we all have different ways to get to the same thing.
I am learning to honour your way and mine.
05.35 Friday, 7th September 2012

I can breathe clearly when the fear has gone,
I can feel confident that I'll beat this thing.
I can walk to my bathroom without fearing death.
It's gonna be a bright Bright sunshiny day.

I can see the obstacles in my way more clearly, they are not as much the usual suspects I can be forgiven for thinking they are. The biggest obstacles are clouds of fear, with surprise at how that fear affects me. The Spanish inquisition nearly got me, fetch the comfy chair...I think for now I will leave it here and watch some Monty Python.