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Trusting Our Bodies to Heal - Feeling Hope Again


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This past month has been a revelation, a little background and then I'll get to the subject line, I promise. By going back to a Paleo type diet (important: not a low carb version), my mind is clearing and my sxs are more tolerable (only day 22!) and I can share some very important revelations with you, beyond the diet change.

 

I really hit a low point last December, when I checked myself into a psych ward voluntary for SI and just generally losing my mind, and they forced me to rapid taper on a forced hold (2 weeks). Needless to say when I was finally released I was a complete mess and ended up reinstating. It was a nightmare and I lost any last shred of hope I had buried. The deep dark abyss that is benzo wd, the lack of support or acknowledgement from the medical community, the symptoms and suffering, like any trauma, are beyond what words can express (as I'm sure you know by now).

 

Even though I am 31, this is by no means my first rodeo with chronic, relentless, painful debilitating illnesses. I hold a nutrition degree and have used a paleo type diet (much to my initial resistance and doubt) to heal my body and mind in the past. The benefits are numerous, and worth the initial discomfort, truly.

 

Fast forward to today, adjusting to the diet was rough during wd for a couple of weeks. I made a few attempts already this year, but was unsuccessful. But at day 22 I can write, and think clearly, and speak, and I'm starting to even feel again. My moods are leveling. Most importantly, I feel empowered instead of powerless. I still have sxs, but I've regained some sanity, clarity, and dare I say it, Hope.

 

Most importantly, I am starting to feel like myself, my identity is returning. I have come to believe that the loss of identity we experience in benzo wd is one of the most debilitating aspects of this process. Because benzo wd and the fear and suffering is fully disempowering. We can feel like there is no hope, and we are truly victims of this chemical dependency. Our over-sensitized nervous systems leave us burnt out with sxs, and we lose touch with ourselves. But I have found that the downward mental spirals can be especially deadly.

 

I was reminded, today, to stop fighting my body and mind. If you had asked me a month ago, before I took charge of my health again (starting with food), I would have said this was impossible. But having some stability now, peace is possible at times. I've decided to stop looking at what I'm going through as benzo hell, even when it is. Instead, I feel empowered and reconnected to myself, to life itself, again.

 

A major part of this shift is just believing that it's possible to make some changes that benefit me, that alleviate some suffering. Big or small, everything counts. It's the efforts we make towards self care and deep nurturing that can restore our hope and wellbeing, even in the darkest of hours, when we have lost all hope.

 

I had a major revelation that my anger towards the system that put me in this condition, the root of it, was being directed inwards, towards myself. That heightened cortisol and adrenaline rage has kept me in this negative feedback loop, cruelly making the taper and sxs even worse. It's part of the process of this healing journey, and totally valid, but it's time for me to throw down my guns, because resentment is like a twist of fate, draining the very life out me.

 

Most importantly, I realized this morning, that I was/am ashamed of my symptoms and disability. I no longer believed that I deserved to heal, to feel better, to make the effort or use the resources it takes to get well again. I felt the immense guilt at being in this condition, one that is so hard to share with those who don't understand. I didn't want another minute of suffering, I wanted to end my life to avoid it. I have been through major illness and severe chronic pain and nothing compares to benzo wd. I was desperate.

 

As the dietary shift has helped me level (quite dramatically), I have been able to slowly start doing just a bit of meditation and breathing exercises to calm my poor nervous system. I've been able to go outside (severe agoraphobia before) and actually feel joy at the sun shining down on me, at spring blooming all around me.

 

So, friends, I ask you, if you've made it this far in my post, what if you just took a few minutes to stop and listen to your body and to ask what it needs from you? To reconnect to your innate wisdom, even if that voice has become tiny in the sea of benzo fear and suffering. To breathe deeply and feel into your symptoms and allow them to be, instead of fighting, for just a few moments, to acknowledge that they are there, to acknowledge the discomfort with curiosity and ask what it needs from you.

 

Because, from my long term experience with healing, to trust that your body is wise and can be the most powerful shift we make, and has an almost ethereal soothing impact, at times. Do you need to rest all day? All week? Can you listen in and allow yourself to hear, to do what you need, bit by bit? Is there judgement and guilt around what you need to do for yourself to really surrender to this process and give yourself what you need? I know that this is one of my biggest personal struggles and one that is ingrained in our culture of suck it up and get over it (being gaslit by the medical profession does not help). So, without anyone else's opinion, can you trust your inner voice and, gasp, even follow it?

 

Because it is almost automatic to fight against the suffering and illness, to wage a battle against benzo wd, to fall into the downward spiral of helplessness as we suffer so immensely we feel like we are drowning in it. And I don't mean to say ignore any of that, but to look at it with curiosity, even if it's uncomfortable and annoying and painful, it is there.

 

When we do this, the vast energy we put into fighting this illness can begin to shift into little positive actions we can take to make it more bearable, always remembering that eventually, our condition can, at the very least, improve...if not fully heal. After all, where are the people who succeeded? Off living their lives, of course. Some stay and support us, but I bet that most move forward, eventually, even when it takes years of ups and downs.

 

We have been taught that we are powerless and that healing is a battle against our bodies. From overcoming 9 horrific chronic illness in my 20s and surviving some 10+ near death experiences (lost count  :(), and horrific trauma since I was in-utero, I have learned that the opposite is actually true.

 

Surrender to the process, not by giving up, but by tuning in and giving yourself what you need...whether that is rest, food, two minutes outside, a netflix binge, an emotional release or meltdown, cutting out stress or toxic people or medical providers...there are no wrong answers here...what's important is that we re-learn to trust our own voices in this process, and to begin to care for ourselves more gently than the world around us says we should

 

May you all find healing and what you need to ease this process... :smitten:

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