January 2023
I’m lost.
Maybe it’s ADHD undiagnosed, or perhaps it’s that my soul is searching for its path.
As a child, a teacher told my parents and I that I would be a writer, but I’ve always loved art. I love the let go of play and exploration. The feel of a medium in my hand, the magic of what it creates in front of me. But fear has stopped me from falling the path of an artist. Fear and something else.
My health.
I was always a sick child; although my parents seemed to disagree, I almost always felt a little under the weather, but after a while, it just started to become the norm. At a very young age, my father told me the story of the little boy who called ‘Wolf’ and all the sheep were killed, and inside was sown a seed of doubt in whether this malaise we me or something constructed.
When I received my diagnosis at 17, it was a real blow. A blood test had come back with an odd result, and suddenly I was thrown headfirst into a world of medical tests and evaluations as doctors desperately tried to work out what was wrong with me. They, the doctors, found an answer eventually. But by then, it was too late. The damage had been done. It had been being done for as many years as it had been, and as such, I had the liver of a hardened drinker with stage four cirrhosis. Irreversible damage to my body caused by my body as it attacked me. I wasn’t an alcohol drinker. Yet I was being punished as though I was.
The prognosis was grim, and a plan of doing a law conversion and then going to the Bar and becoming a barrister went out the window in weeks. Beta-blockers to reduce the pressure in my varices meant I was suddenly exhausted and kept falling asleep at school. (Varices are dilated veins in the distal oesophagus or proximal stomach caused by elevated pressure in the portal venous system, typically from cirrhosis). While by the time I reached university, I was on a rollercoaster of emotions as I desperately tried to come to terms with a health condition that had derailed my life. Desperately searching for answers and finding none, descending into the seas of despair and eventually madness as my liver failed to filter toxins that would reach my brain, causing hepatic encephalopathy*. With this condition which I wasn’t told about, I suffered from mood swings, paranoia, depression, insomnia and personality changes which I believe made me a crazy person. A person who, at times, I could barely recognise myself. It was terrifying to know I was dying. I felt incredibly alone. How on earth could anyone understand what it was like to be suddenly on a huge amount of medication with their side effects, knowing this would now be my life and that one day I would die. Or feel what it felt like to have an organ fail. My liver. The liver, an organ I had never really paid attention to, was now a part of my life whether I liked it or not. I would learn about its functions and place in Chinese medicine2 and wonder if maybe being an anxious child had brought about my disease. Later, it would become clear that it was far more likely that, as a child, I had been prescribed solid antibiotics for ‘bonkeritis’. (Bronchitis as named by a three year old) and those likely were responsible for weakening my gut wall, if not causing some sort of leak that led to this unsolicited attack on my body.
Regardless of all this, here I am now. Thirty-eight as of this month, and so many projects started. So many courses were signed up for. Instagram accounts were created. Ideas mind mapped. All begun and yet unfinished. Why does history keep repeating?
There could be many reasons, but the one that continues to be apparent is my health. My energy levels, fatigue, mental chaos, brain fog, and all the rest.
If I could sort ‘me’, would everything else start to fall into place?
I’m a big believer that if you look at people who have been divorced several times and bemoan the lack of good relationships, the likely factor that needs to be analysed is them, and with my life, it’s me that is the consistent feature.
I’m going to do one of those creative visualisation exercises tomorrow. You know, the ones where you write down your perfect day and describe your ideal life? I’ve got to visualise it to create it, feel it, believe it might be possible and then one day realise it. If there is one thing I see daily, and no, it’s not just my phone stalking me – it’s that if you want to change your life, you need to take action to create it. You need to know what you want, what it will look like, feel like, smell like, even, and be able to almost touch it to get it. And fear is what stops us. Fear is often what holds us back. Fear of what might happen if we actually did create the change and be the person we dream we could be.
To become unlost, we need to find ourselves and find the path, the purpose that will help us define our life.
For too long, my health has defined me. It has dictated my existence, and this year I’m taking back control to become the authentic, unapologetic version of me I know I’ve always been if my health hadn’t gotten in the way.
I’m going to take control. I’m going to heal myself. Feel it – believe it – then create it.
*1 Hepatic encephalopathy (HE) refers to changes in the brain that occur in patients with advanced, acute (sudden) or chronic (long-term) liver disease. It is one of the significant complications of cirrhosis. It can occur suddenly in people with acute liver failure but is more often seen in those with chronic liver disease
2. According to Traditional Chinese Medicine, the Liver is the organ responsible for the smooth flow of emotions and Qi and blood. It is the organ that is most affected by excess stress or emotions. The Liver’s partner organ is the Gallbladder. (https://www.tcmworld.org/what-is-tcm/the-five-major-organ-systems/tcm-lifestyle-wisdom-for-liver-health/)