Has It Really Been a Year?
A year and some change has passed since my last entry, but a truckload of life has happened. I became a grandmother, or "Gigi," if you will. My darling grandson is now 7 months. His giant smile and zest for life has been a boon in all the rigorous recovery I've been living through. Not long after my last post, I discovered two life-changing resources. The first was Claire Weekes' book, "Hope and Help For Your Nerves" (recommended by a friend) and the second was a Christian "anxiety coach" I found online. I read the Claire Weekes book and knew I'd found exactly the explanation for why my world turned upside down in 2024. Then I stumbled upon my coach's youtube channel and found a world I did not know existed--a world of people who were all walking through the same nightmare in their body that I was experiencing. The old-school way of referring to what happened to me (and 3% of all Americans) is "a nervous breakdown." But that is far from an accurate or helpful label. A far more fitting term is "Nervous System Disregulation" or "Nervous System Oversensitization." I have now been recovering from this nervous system disregulation for over 18 months, which while seemingly long, is actually pretty average. In that 18 months, I have experienced so many symptoms, I cannot possibly document them here. My weight plummeted 40 pounds at one point. Insomnia, DPDR, ocular issues, tinnitus, heart rate and blood pressure issues, brain zaps, nosebleeds, dizziness, vertigo, body temperature disregulation and racing thoughts are just some highlights. Learning to not only live life again, but to live it while experiencing symptoms 24/7 has made me quite resilient. On top of that, I have learned to eat extremely healthily and wonder how I ever ate any differently. No more white sugar, sucralose, soda, or heavily processed food for me.
As I begin to turn what I hope is the final corner in my recovery, I am returning to many of my former hobbies, practices, and past-times to see what still "clicks" with my desires. I have quit teaching violin to all but one student. That is good and I do not wish to change that. I have not been writing, and I wish to change that. I have not been decorating my home, and while I long to do that again, I do not wish to do it in our current home. We are considering moving to a "new" home, but with interest rates what they are, we aren't sure that can be a reality. I continue to enjoy time with family and friends and desire to see that only grow and blossom through hospitality as I fully recover. I have not been teaching the ladies at church, except for a small discipleship group of 4, and I am not sure what the future holds for that. Today and yesterday is the first time in over 2 years that I have been looking at jobs. Tutoring or writing for pay would probably be a welcome way to earn income, but I lack some necessary qualifications for most of the jobs I saw. I could also become a coach for the very thing I am still recovering from, but I am not the most tech-savvy girl on the planet, so starting something up feels daunting.
All in all, I definitely "see the light at the end of the tunnel," but I don't know what I am doing in that future light. Our baby had just been married two weeks when all of this started, and I had poured so much into two weddings that last year, I was just looking forward to a rest. I guess I've had it, but it wasn't the rest I was thinking about. I spent a while today reading back through some old posts from this blog, remembering the person I was a decade ago in the Bahamas, or even 5 years ago when we first moved to the Space Coast. Little did I know then what awaited me. It cannot all be for nothing, can it? There must be something life-changing that emerges from all of this. I hope so. But for now, I wait. I keep recovering. I keep remembering that life wasn't always like this, nor will it go on like this forever. And for that, I am grateful.
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