Overcoming – dysautonomia vs ME

Building Bridges to Health

By Missy M / April 14, 2021 June 9, 2022 / Leave a Comment / Bridges, Treatments / 8 minutes of reading

Apr 14 2021June 9, 2022

Finding your bridge back to health isn’t always a straight, steady path. You’ll encounter twists, turns & sharp angles along the way. You’ll hear scary squeaks from weak footings underneath you. It will feel wrong, frightening & disorienting. You may even lose True North for a bit & have to wander backwards & around to reset your health compass. Whatever happens don’t let yourself freeze up. Standing still is losing ground. Treading onward is the only bridge there is back to health. That all sounds so trite. But it’s all so true. And it’s all I have to offer right now. Honestly, the way I feel today I could have written this post with one punctuation mark & it would have told the truth. (?)

WHERE TO START

Living near & being treated by GOOD Dysautonomia | POTS | Mast Cell | Lyme | Gastroparesis | Ehler-Danlos | Chiari specialists, and staying on the meds they prescribe is a start. I’m building my bridge as I write. Every word is a step forward. This website is a quasi, hand-crafted overpass between where I was 20 years ago: unable to move or eat, needing a toilet next to my bed; & being able to walk around the neighborhood like I see so many others doing with such ease. I was able do a little of that. Walked a mile and a half (!) at Point Lookout Beach in July on a coolish day. Then the heat of summer hit me hard. I’m on a temporary pause now due to BP drop/tachycardia symptoms, and back on Gatorade. I can also tell you doing this blog is sometimes injurious to my health, due to the amount of work needed – especially since I don’t really know what I’m doing technically with this blog & all that goes into maintaining it.

But I\’m not giving up. I owe it to my husband & my sister who have supported me through so much. I owe my parents too. When they were alive they were always there for me. And I owe it to God who put me here to DO SOMETHING WORTHWHILE. At this precise moment in time I would categorize myself as cautiously optimistic my bridge to health will be completed – if I keep going. I choose to believe making this website was taking the first step.

I JUST CHANGED MY MIND

I have not written any of these posts in Word & copied & pasted them here. I write in WordPress as I go. Something came over me as I read the previous paragraph back regarding the phrase “cautiously optimistic the bridge will be built.” I’m not going to delete it because I want you to see what I was thinking & feeling a moment ago & what I’m choosing to think & feel now.

Change can take place spontaneously, if your mind is oriented with what you really want. Cautiously optimistic suddenly sounds to me like a set-up for failure. Because I know how things went in the past I’m presuming they will go that way again. Yes, I still feel lousy, very low, weak, upset about my situation & haven’t gotten to the right dose of the right medication yet. Even so, I have decided to change my thoughts about what’s occurring.

For thousands of years may wise men have tried to warn us thoughts have consequences. Our Lord said “For what things a man shall sow, those also shall he reap.” (Gal. 6:8) He wasn’t talking about planting crops. What you sow in your mind is brought into reality after a certain amount of time. When it finally shows up in our lives we have forgotten our past ruminations & therefore don’t recognize out past thoughts have come to fruition. Why should I keep bringing into reality the same physiological nightmare that almost killed me? NO! I’m going to think the opposite & trust the opposite will bloom into reality. I have nothing to lose & everything to gain. Therefore, I now categorize myself as ABSOLUTELY CERTAIN MY BRIDGE TO HEALTH WILL BE COMPLETED AND I WILL WALK OVER IT TO A NEW LIFE.

That doesn’t mean I’m going to stop medication or do stupid things like vacuuming the house when I don’t feel well (I did that last Sunday & almost passed out), or walking in the hot sun, or going up & down the stairs repeatedly. That will bring on fainting & tachycardia. I have to tattle on myself lest you think I always practice what I preach. The other day before getting in the shower I had tachycardia & could feel my BP drop. I decided I would tough it out. Like an idiot, I took the shower. In my mind I was being heroic. Far from it. It was wrong thinking accompanied by dangerous exertion. I’m lucky I didn’t pass out, hit my head & die. I was doing what I wanted against my better judgment – because I hadn’t been able to take a shower for five 5 days for exactly the same reasons. I just wanted what I wanted. I was being selfish actually & acted with pure stupidity. Where was my regard for my husband? If something untoward had happened to me how would he have felt? He’s been through enough. The rest of the day I was physically ruined & spent hours recovering from my mistake. Don’t be foolish is what I learned from that episode. How many times must I re-learn what I already know? I’m better than that. And so are you.

MIRACLES DO HAPPEN

As I wrote the words above my feelings started changing. My thoughts changed. They’ve taken a turn & are moving me into a different place. (The trick is to sustain them.) I’ve been praying for health for so long, waiting for God to heal me miraculously, in a split second, the way He raised Lazarus from the dead & commanded him to come forth from his tomb. If that was God’s will He could certainly make it happen for me. But even Lazarus had to do his part: he had to sit up on his burial slab, pull off his burial wrappings, and start walking his way back into life again. Maybe it’s time for me to do the same.

Perhaps there’s a method Christ was trying to convey to us in the instruction: “Ask and ye shall receive.” (St. Matthew, 7: 7). What if we changed the first word from Ask to ACT?

YOU CAN DO MORE THAN YOU THINK YOU CAN – SO LONG AS YOU THINK PROPERLY

When dysautonomia or any of its associated conditions turn you into a prisoner of your bed there’s not much you can do. Even thinking is a luxury. But you can:

Talk to God though prayer. Ask for health.
Express gratitude even though you’re not well, because you’re still here & have the opportunity to build a bridge to health.
Now comes the really hard part. You must literally see the bridge in your imagination. Nothing in this world has ever been built without someone first imagining it & seeing it in his mind’s eye. But it’s not just imagining it that builds it.
In order to turn a thought in the mind into objective physical reality one must believe not just in the possibility of it becoming real, but in the SURETY of it coming into being. Put yourself in the place of wellness and FEEL THE WELLNESS. One must also take action to make it happen. A cake won’t bake itself no matter how much you think about it. Ya gotta mix the stuff & put it in the oven. THEN the cake you imagined first in your mind becomes a delicious treat for the whole family to enjoy.

HOW TO HELP YOURSELF

Envision yourself, via your imagination, having crossed the bridge to health that YOU built with YOUR imagination. You must try to do the imagining every single day. (I know how hard that can be. And on some days it will be downright impossible. But at least make the effort every day to picture a few seconds of you in a better place.) And here’s the most important thing, you must BELIEVE that not only will it happen but that it already HAS happened – despite all appearances to the contrary (as per Wallace D. Wattles). That’s how you’ll create for yourself a different future than would have occurred without you imagining it. It’s not mumbo jumbo; it’s God’s law: “For what things a man shall sow, those also shall he reap.”

I don’t have Instagram but I saw a meme from it somewhere. It was a woman holding up a sign. Only her hand was visible, along with the sign, and the vast ocean behind it. The words on the sign read: YOUR FOCUS DETERMINES YOUR REALITY. To a great degree that is true. Plus if Instagram says so that makes it true, right?

THE METHOD

God gave us imagination as a tool. Like any tool we have to first learn how to use it then use it. So imagining is the FIRST ELEMENT & must be done daily. BELIEVING THE BRIDGE WILL BE BUILT before you see it built is the FAITH part of the equation. “Be not faithless but believing.” (St. John, Chapter 20). Without Faith the bridge will NEVER be constructed. Imagining & Faith are intertwined necessary components. You have to ignore what you see & feel currently & become expert at seeing yourself in the future healthy & well.

PRAY (Ask.)
IMAGINE (See the vision of your future healthy self.)
BELIEVE it has already happened. (Because it has. You just haven\’t reached that point yet. Have faith that you will.)
ACT (Take some kind of step toward rebuilding your health. Depending where you are in your journey it may simply be taking your medication is the only step you can take. And that’s fine. If the medication is the right medication & you start feeling better, then you can start thinking of new ways to help you health along to wonderful.

YOU ONLY HAVE TO CROSS THE BRIDGE TO GET THERE!

What does building a bridge back to health look like for YOU? Please tell me and everyone else reading this post, how are you building your bridge back to health?

Photo by Jacob Colvin from Pexels

Getting Back to Life

By Missy M / April 13, 2021 May 26, 2022 / Leave a Comment / Treatments / 2 minutes of reading

Apr 13 2021May 26, 2022

How does one get back to life?

One second at a time. One sip of Gatorade at a time. For me, typing one word at a time is getting back to life. I’ve always loved to write. I have a fair amount of material written for a sequel (of sorts) to a classic sci-fi movie. It’s pretty darn good if I say so myself. I’ve had half a darn good novel sitting unfinished for 20 years.

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Photo by Vidal Balielo Jr. from Pexels

Why Your Heart Needs A Why

By Missy M / April 11, 2021 June 3, 2022 / Leave a Comment / HOPE, mindset, Overcoming, POSITIVITY / 5 minutes of reading

Apr 11 2021June 3, 2022

You can choose your purpose. Yep, uh-uh, you can. You don’t have to be knocked off your horse by a flash of light and blinded like Saul in order to discover your purpose. You don’t need to come up with an uber impressive new-agey earth-shattering magnificence beyond the beyond. Anything you love doing that doesn’t feel like drudgery can be a place to start. It may not be where you finish, but you gotta get the starting started.

We all have something to accomplish on this planet. Being gravely ill for years does not aid in the pursuit one’s dreams. In general we are here to be fruitful and multiply and to do our duty to God, family & country. However, each one of us also has a unique purpose for which we came into the world. We were created to create. It’s our job, if you will.

Perhaps you were in the midst of fulfilling your purpose when the dysautonomia thing struck. If so, let’s think about why the dysautonomia thing struck. Were you close to your objective? Were you three feet from gold? If the answer is yes then don’t give up. It was probably old programming dragging you back to where you once thought you were supposed to be. When you have recovered your physical equilibrium, continue on your mission with vigor & determination.

WRONG WAY, TURN BACK

Perhaps though – please be willing to to consider this – perhaps the dysautonomia thing struck because you were attempting to realize the wrong goal – for you. Or perhaps you were blown off course by the winds of a devastating trauma that affected you to your core. If that’s so, dysautonomia probably came to stop you in your tracks and force you to change direction.

Whatever it is, you need something to help reignite the smoldering fire within and give you back your true raison d’être. And that something is: HAVING A WHY.

FACE THE TRUTH – WHATEVER IT IS

If you don’t have a WHY – as in WHY you want to be well – you will remain trapped in the dysautonomia paradigm* longer than necessary. How can you do the work you were put here to do, or even discover what your purpose is, if you’re constantly passing out, having cardiac issues, suffering with terrible pain, or [insert symptom here]?

Pssst — this is not a time-factor thing, it’s a spiritual-factor thing. Nobody’s judging you on how long it takes you to be well. Whether it’s one year or 50 years is not the essential part; it’s the getting well that’s the essential part.

YOU ARE LIMITLESS

No matter what shape you’re in, you can still figure out your WHY. Your mind is the most important place in the world, and that’s where the heart holds your why. In the mind is where you truly reside. The five senses try to convince you you are a body that happens to have a soul. The truth is you are a soul using a body to get you through this testing ground called Earth.

HOW TO GET YOUR WHY

What you need to aim for eventually is to getting YOUR WHY written down. Ask yourself these questions & really dig deep:

Why do you want to be well? (If you want to get somewhere you’ll have to go further than “Because I hate being sick.”)
What is the first thing you will do when you’re done with dysautonomia? (Eat a normal meal or take a walk are fine goals to start with. Go further if you want to. DREAM BIG!)
Write a short paragraph describing a day in your completely healthy dream life. (Bring in your 5 senses – see, smell, hear, touch, taste – so your 6th sense can get to work hardening your vision into reality. Thoughts are Things. Everything in this world is created twice: first, in the mind; second, in the physical world.)
Write one small goal you would like to accomplish in 90 days. (You must believe it is already accomplished. It is essential you maintain unwavering faith in that belief. Only then can you become the person who accomplished it already – quicker than you currently believe is possible.)
Write down a harder goal you want to achieve in 6 months time. (Bring in those 5 senses.)
Where you see yourself a year from today? (Let the 5 senses make your envisioning more realistic. REALIZE THE IDEAL. Let no present appearance to the contrary stop you from imagining a miracle!

JUST START.

Download & print MY WHY so you can write it down – if you’re up to it. If not, just imagine it. There’s something so spiritually powerful though about putting pen to paper. I recommend that method over computer or cell phone. Whether on paper or in the mind, the main thing is to get it done. Keep refining your goals as you go along. Setbacks don’t matter. What matters is you having faith in your ability to heal.

*Negative Paradigm: defeatist thoughts & unhelpful habits that run through your mind controlling you, whether or not you are aware of them. When you attempt to “change the paradigm,” that is, change the habitual patterns you have carried out mindlessly for years, perhaps decades, the paradigm will do everything in its power to stop you. You must take command away from these detrimental misconceptions & inappropriate actions and finally become the commander of your own life. The only power they have over you is the power you give them. Work at building a mountain of powerful positive thoughts until they outweigh the handicapping negative thoughts. By doing so you will have broken the frame of old paradigm and changed the course of your life. You can do it!