I never knew it was a pattern, until the counselor pointed it out last August. One of the gifts of Onsite is being able to tell your whole story in a safe space. After we shared our stories, the counselor leading our group gave each of us a handful of notecards. She'd kept notes while we talked, and the cards had "truths" on them. Things we'd implicitly or explicitly said in the telling of our stories, either to transition to the next part of the story, to explain or rationalize a part of our story, or simply some other little thing that was so fundamentally embedded in the way we moved through what had happened to us that we didn't even notice it.
One of my cards said, "there's a pill for everything."
I've been thinking about that a lot lately and realizing that the story I tell myself around this LIE is a heavy weight on my shoulders. It means that if I haven't found the answer to my problem, maybe it means I'm too stupid or too lazy or too unworthy of a solution.
Even as I struggle to put that thought in print, I feel the truth of it.
I suppose it started when I lost my period in high school. It wasn't a mystery; it was anorexia. The "answer," of course, was the birth control pill.
Then there were the chronic digestive issues, unexplained by tests, no answers offered aside from daily over-the-counter remedies that didn't really help, even in large doses.
There was the asthma that started in college and got worse every year. The antihistamines, the decongestants, the Singulair, the rescue inhalers, the steroid inhalers, the prednisone every time the seasons changed.
There was the persistent running injury when, even after months of PT, the only think the orthopedic surgeon could tell me was to take 800mg of Advil every day. I started questioning the narrative: Is this really the best you can offer me?!
Then there was the acne. Antibiotics until I landed in the hospital with C. diff. Spironilactone which didn't do anything but make me anxious. Doctor-dosed shame over not just wanting to get back on the pill (the artificial hormones in which made me depressed). Then nine months of Accutane, which forced me back on the pill anyway.
As each step failed me in this medical system to which I had subscribed (I was a compliant patient, after all, and an RN to boot), I had to start thinking outside of the box.
You know what helps with eating disorders? Counseling and radical self-compassion and finding foods and food systems that nourish you instead of just eating calories to check a box.
You know what helped with the chronic gallbladder spasms? Going gluten-free and regularly getting acupuncture.
I got off of the decongestants thanks to an incredibly painful septo-rhinoplasty and turbinate reduction (ironically performed by the ENT who would later mentor the same brother who-- accidentally-- broke my nose in the first place all those years ago). And even though all my allergy testing never pointed to dairy, going strictly dairy-free got me off of ALL of my asthma medication over the course of a year.
The crazy IT band pain was relieved a little by the chiropractor, and relieved a lot when I started pelvic floor PT after having my first baby.
Remnants of my medical history still live with me, of course, in this body in which I reside. Digestion is a daily battle. My cystic acne has flared up again after 8 years of the glowing skin I always wanted. I struggle with chronic pain and fatigue and hormones and anxiety. I grow weary: if it isn't one problem, it's another. It's all of it.
Even in knowing that the "system" was flawed, even in knowing that the alternative solutions weren't always super cut-and-dry, even as I strayed from the idea that there wasn't an actual prescription medication for what ailed me, I still felt (feel) as though there is one SOLUTION that I simply haven't found yet. And let me tell you, the dogged determination of finding a solution that eludes you is expensive in both time and money.
Walking into Onsite last year, my most recent struggle had been the search for a magical pill that would let me sleep at night without making me even more foggy during the day. The anti-depressant that would make my life feel manageable without giving me a paradoxical reaction or horrible side-effects.
But psychotropics were failing me. Sure, Xanax worked like a miracle... until I needed a higher dose. Then Restoril became my favorite medication ever but was not a long-term solution. I could only spend so many nights having panic-attacks instead of the peaceful slumber that each new prescription promised. I could only spend so many hopeful weeks "letting my body adjust" to a new medication that was making me wanting to crawl out of my skin instead of reducing my anxiety.
So when the counselor handed me that card and I read those words, I felt a veil lift after the initial shock of recognition. Yes, yes this is how I have lived my life: as though every symptom has a solution and if I haven't found it, it's on me.
This has led to (and even still temps me down) paths where I walk a fine line between genius and insanity: vitamins and detoxes and elimination diets and cleanses. These have been most valuable when I DO listen to my body and take what's useful and leave the rest. For example, I can breathe when I don't each cheese. I'm not insanely bloated and foggy-brained if I simply avoid gluten. But when I stop listening to my body and listen only to the protocol-- and the protocol doesn't work-- it leads to despair.
Do you know what's hiding behind this medical timeline that I've memorized for my medical history forms? The story behind the story. The deep hurts, the adandonment, the pain, the lack of boundaries, the pervasive shame I've taken into myself.
Do you know what happened the night I came home from Onsite? After a week of airing my demons and having them dismissed in a loving way, after sharing the worst of me and being received with compassion, I fell asleep without medications. And I did it the next night, too. I put a few small things into practice from what I'd learned there, and I moved forward slowly and took care of myself one day at a time, and I slept.
In fact, I didn't need anything (aside from Peace Juice during the stress of moving to a new state) until I started a new job a year later. And here I find myself letting my boundaries slip as a I navigate a manipulative work situation in which I just want to resort to my people-pleasing ways, even though I know that no longer serves me.
Plus there's this whole pandemic. And residual moving stress. And the fact that I desperately miss my old job. While I don't mind that actual work of my new job aside from the train wreck that my orientation has been, wearing a mask for 12 hours is exhausting even when you DO have enough red blood cells to transport oxygen effectively (spoiler: I don't). And suddenly, there it is. The panic the night before every work shift that only subsides with a Restoril.
It weighs me down, thinking it's all on me. So it's hard to explain that freedom is found on the other side of the same coin: the answer isn't necessarily outside of me. The new doctor, diet, pharmaceutical, or detox isn't going to save me from the human condition.
EVEN KNOWING THIS, I still slip down the hole of searching the internet for a new protocol or herbal remedy or... fill in the blank. Today it came to me again: I've come so far, but at the end of the day, I still believe there's a "pill" for everything. Even as I struggle with anemia, the genes for hemachomatosis suggest that taking iron supplements for years has not been beneficial. Heavy periods come every 23 days (insanity-making, to be sure) and I still beat myself up for not doing something right or sticking to something long enough for it to work.
Yes, clearly anemia is a real problem, but all of my other labs are annoyingly, frustratingly, fine. Yes I've also paid out-of-pocket for lots of labs that the "normal" doctor won't order. Yes, they're mostly fine, too. And this has been crazy-making. My symptoms are very real, but the causes are totally unclear. Which means there is no clear-cut cure to chase down.
Last month, a nutritional coach I've been working with simply told me, "your labs haven't shown you something that can be labeled as a problem? GOOD!" I've been sitting here thinking that it means either a) I'm crazy and it's all in my head or b) I'm not crazy but the answer must be incredibly rare and uncommon. Turns out I'm really good at black-and-white thinking and there's actually another option: while my problems are very much not "in my head," since they aren't exactly on my lab results either, it means it's within my power to address them in the exact same way I'm learning to address every other thing in my life: as a grownup with boundaries and compassion. My physical well-being is not separate from my mental and emotional well-being, and in fact they're so intertwined that it's almost impossible to parse through which issue started where.
So here I am, beginning again, knowing everything and nothing is the same.
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