Shit, fuck. Shit, fuck. Shit, fuck.
Why am I doing this?
If anybody ever asks you to completely reset your nervous system, please tell them no. It is even worth shouting out, noooooooooooo!
Because doing so is a really, really, really bad idea.
I am healing, but not in the way I expected.
This is so difficult, it has to be the definition of torture.
On Sunday night my body became a war zone again. This happens only occasionally, but whenever it does, it feels like being stuck in a terror loop.
My right and left sides wage war, competing for who is more injured. It hurts so much that my body writhes in anguish as if I am being shot by a pellet gun. Constantly in movement and drenched in sweat, sleep always evades me.
During these episodes, my body feels the most unsafe.
Neither side is in charge, leaving me fully exposed.
Thus, I am at my most vulnerable in this state.
Hence the terror loop. There is nowhere to run. No escape.
In fact, when it happened the day after Israel assassinated Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, it was the most unsafe I have ever felt in my life.
Well, it happened again a few days ago, but I am way further along in my healing now and so this time my right side really made a go for it.
What a difference in my body the next day!
I need to socially isolate right now because my monster really has been the only way that I can defend myself from others.
Without people, there is no need for my monster.
So, at long last, it really is letting go now!
Allowing me to finally self actualise, for the first time in my life.
This will begin to trickle into my art and writing.
Because making my monster come alive artistically is healing.
I even gave it a suicide seizure, dedicated to the koala.
That unleashed some pretty insane healing.
For example, I had the strangest tastes bursting into my consciousness.
Charred flesh or meat was the worst, as I am a vegetarian.
It tasted like being roasted on a flame.
And yet it released something in my cheeks and neck.
Then there was the yucky chemical sweetness, like those awful strawberry shortcake dolls of my youth.
Did that help loosen the scar tissue around my heart?
Something is happening, that is for sure.
But there is still a lot of work to be done every day.
I need to do at least two hours of challenging exercise.
I use red light therapy in the oxygen tank twice a day.
I do the cat and cows in the hot bath, with isometric holds.
I do the same in the two daily cold baths, plus I scream out.
(Of course, I only do the latter at home.)
And all of this is working. I have never felt so confused and disoriented and mad, but my nervous system is finally figuring itself out.
I once thought that doing balance yoga with spasms was tricky. Now, doing it while feeling like I am in a rocking, narrow boat is pretty outrageous.
But there is so much light!
The downside is that I am really struggling to draw at the moment. All of this energy releasing on my right side just makes me shake.
I have absolutely no body confidence.
But for the first time in my life, I can now learn it.
Yoga is more helpful than ever here. The most basic poses are the most challenging. Warrior one is so complex that it provides endless healing.
I just have to be kind to myself, especially when my left side struggles to figure something simple out. After all, I am learning to move anew.
See, I am actively trying to be more kind to myself.
And way more cautious of others. I have been used and abused my entire life, but nobody has ever hurt me more than the koala did.
I will not let in anybody like that ever again.
When I first realised that my injuries were from birth, it was only three years ago. I was in Italy for my health and research.
At the end of my stay in Rome, I promised myself that I would forgive everybody in my life who had ever hurt me.
But given my suffering, how is this ever going to be possible?
People have just hurt me way too much and I have a right to be angry.
As a result, I have been really thinking about the difference between forgiving and forgetting. Because of my monster, previously I mistakenly thought that forgiveness required forgetting. It does not.
I think if I do not forget, then perhaps I can forgive.
But then, how do I release this trauma?
My story is different to others because I do not know how to value myself over others. So, I care too much about what others think.
It never should have mattered. I should have been able to self actualise and develop and not be under everybody else’s shoes.
I have so many talents and yet people make me feel worthless.
So, perhaps forgiveness will be more about me, not them?
Last weekend I tried to see a special science and art exhibition in Cardiff that I had really been looking forward to. My one day out in August. But the VR set was wonky and the person administering it was clumsy and tightened it around my head too tight twice, causing me a quiet seizure.
I was very distrought and had to leave and request a refund.
I was not okay and do not like the way people treated me.
But then this is the rub. I do not want anybody to have power over me.
Holding onto my victimhood makes me resentful.
Nobody should hold that kind of power over anybody like that.
So perhaps forgiveness for me is not about letting other people off the hook, but more like not caring about what they think.
Because that is what fuels my monster.
Muscle memory stored all of my trauma in my injuries, especially what others have done to me, but now that I am healing, I can finally let that all go. I can choose to be alone not because I need to, but instead want to.
My body can finally learn to be safe, all on my own.
And give me space to finally become me…
