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Posted 1/19/2015 5:17 AM (GMT 0)
I've been debating whether to post this question for a while. It's an issue that seems to keep coming up and I'm not quite sure how to handle it.

Do any of you consider your chronic illness to have an emotional seed? Do you understand it as somehow tied to a history of abuse in your childhood?

Or if you were abused in childhood, do you consider it unrelated?

Also, do any of you imagine that there is emotional healing that you must do in order to heal physically from your illness? Have any of you separated from abusive people in the hopes that it will facilitate healing?

I guess I'll just say, I've made the decision to separate from my family because it seems that they can not break from their patterns of considering me sub-human. I imagined there would be a relief in separating from such toxic relationships, but I have found it to be foremost terribly sad. A loss, though of something I didn't really ever have, if that makes sense. Also, it is just difficult to face being so sick without the basic support of a family. Still, I think this must be the way forward.
Posted 1/19/2015 7:21 AM (GMT 0)
Thank you for posting, Marigold. I assume in what you wrote that you are estranged from your parents and that you have no contact with them now. Well i know how that feels for your parents because wife and i are estranged from our 2 adult kids, son aged 40 and daughter aged 37. Our lives are hollow shells and we are full of heartaches for the loss that our 3 grandkids have because their parents do not want us in their lives. I cannot imagine anything worse for loving parents than estrangement. Now, the connection with lyme. According to our llnp, we both have had this lyme all our lives and we both got it from our respective moms when we were born. I have also had a booster shot of the lyme germ when i was bitten by a tick in 2006 and i got that bull's eye rash. I went to see the my GP and he said not to worry as there is no lyme in canada. Lyme has this psychological component wherein the brain chemicals are altered and thought process become impaired or warped. I believe that our son has confabulated so many false stories about us that he sincerely believes up to a point where he does not know what is up and what is down any more. He is a mental mess. Daughter seems to holding up better. We believe both have the lyme bug but since their minds now reject anything we say, how can we get through to them that they need testing and this testing and treatment which we are willing to fund will get them first feeling better about themselves in a healthy manner, and then maybe we can achieve a reconciliation. How do i as a dad start such a conversation with son or daughter if i do not even have an email address as to where they are now. This estrangement is a horror story for wife and me, and of the two, i much like lyme disease more than estrangement, because lyme does not create the heartache that estrangement does.

Marigold, having read my answer to you, i hope that you will reconsider examining your position re your parents and then you would have patential love in your life again and that love would also probably provide you with some of the support that you need. xfmlg
Posted 1/19/2015 4:11 PM (GMT 0)
I think anything that causes stress makes it hard to heal. But to say that because you had a hard childhood you won't heal until you deal with it I disagree. Maybe for some people, but not for me.

I had a hard life and I still do, but I choose everyday what to pour my energy into. And since I've been sick it hasn't been the toxic people in my life. You don't get to choose your family. If you are constantly having problems that are making it hard to take care of yourself then that would hinder healing. But if you are doing your best everyday to take your medicine and make healthy decisions you should be fine.

You have to make healthy decisions for your mental health too. If you are stressed about something then you should deal with it and not let it build up inside of you. If my schizophrenic father is being his crazy self and bringing it around me I'll go for a walk or talk to my grandma or a friend about it. Or I'll take all of my nervous energy and put it towards making a healthy meal. I used to go for a drive and listen to loud music and sing my heart out too! Just some examples.

It doesn't necessarily have to be big things. If you are taking steps in the right direction then you will eventually reach your goal of being healthy again.
Posted 1/19/2015 4:15 PM (GMT 0)
Hi Marigold,

I am sorry to hear that you've had to come to this kind of decision. it really is heartbreaking--to not get the comfort and acceptance you need from family, and then to have to make the hard choice to isolate yourself when what you really want is a network of support. Still, if you know this is the healthiest thing for you then I wish you strength to keep your distance. Toxic relationships will surely drain the energy you need to focus on getting well.

I do not have a story of childhood abuse but really feel for people who do (my best friend growing up, who is now completely estranged from her entire family since they looked the other way when the abuse was happening, and then ignored it when she came forward with the truth). It has taken her plenty of therapy and a very supportive husband to feel healthy again. She cannot go home, as it brings up all the old memories and abusive family dynamics.

My own mother has always been a superhero to the community (in a medical field) but constantly complained that her own family took advantage of her kindness. As her children, we always heard that she was the victim of our selfishness and that she was unappreciated. She took care of her ailing parents until their deaths, then my paternal grandmother until she passed. She complained all the time about every little thing she had to do--of course this was hard & stressful work!! But we helped, and we hired many nurses and had many volunteers from the community always supporting the efforts. When we would all come home for Christmas she would always ask us to not do it at her house the next year, as she felt taken advantage of by having her many children in her home, which she liked now that it was empty. This always hurt our feelings. She could always give so much to the community but often treated her children like we were constantly abusing her and she would play the victim role. Now, out of nowhere, she has lung cancer. Never smoked or drank a day in her life, always ate organic and did ballet and yoga!! It makes no sense and is very sad. She believes her illness is the manifestation of emotional stuff unresolved. I wonder how much of it has to do with her mindset that she was the victim of some invisible wrongs that none of us ever understood...
Posted 1/19/2015 4:20 PM (GMT 0)
Coming from the other side, I did push my Mom away some and stopped trying to have a relationship with my own brother for the reasons that you started, Marigold. My relationship with my brother has always been toxic, and not much better than that with my Mom, and I had no choice if I were to heal.

Yes, we need to heal all parts of us, not just the physical, because we are one whole, not a physical part and a emotional part, or mental stress wouldn't cause physical illnesses.

While I wouldn't encourage anyone to completely severe their relationship with family members, really reducing their impact on your life may be something that's needed. You can tell them you need to reduce your stress and they need to give you time to heal.
Posted 1/19/2015 5:58 PM (GMT 0)
I think I have a hard time healing from many thing in life. I have had many serious illness and surgeries, and it's weird, but I almost don't mind going through them, as someone is taking care of me for once. The healing I kind of stretch out so I can care for me a bit more and have an excuse. The rest of my life is totally for everyone else, every day. I feel selfish taking time for me unless you count tv in bed at night when I'm exhausted.

I did have abuse from my mother in many ways and my father was quiet, also a target. I feel like I often recreate, well, almost every day, my past emotions. Nothing is ever good enough, nothing I do is right, no one really needs me around, etc. I'm going through that right now. My oldest 2 just left for college and I have two teens. I can't ever seem to do right by anyone not matter what. My third child is the one with psychiatric lyme and for the past 1 1/2 years it's really made a mess of the family. My whole focus is on him and getting him well, and I expected support - a lot more than what we got. Instead I went it mostly alone and no one wants to hear about it.

So, I have wrapped myself around him and myself trying to hang on.... and I have not made anyone happy.

I do think hanging on to grief, pain, etc. from our many years, repeats itself and prevents us from ever being happy and healing and moving on. There is much to be said about positive thinking and letting go. I try hard, but never seem to get there and when things get hard, I really slide back into my hole.

Therapy is good, you may want to try it and a good therapist will not only help you move on in your head, but also will help you try to mend relationships and turn them into good ones. But, you can only change yourself, not others. You can work with them, you can work around them or you can walk away. Time will reveal which path is most beneficial, but you should give it one more try.

Hugs, eileen
Posted 1/19/2015 6:00 PM (GMT 0)
Very brave of you to post Marigold—and others for sharing their very painful experiences. NOTHING is more painful than that which can be inflicted upon us by those who are supposed to love and care for us.

I, too, had a very unstable and troubled childhood. My family were experts at being very waspsy on the outside and an absolute psychotic mess behind closed doors. My parents, both incredibly emotional immature even in their old age, abortions and pregnancies and forced marriage at age 18, divorces, perverted step father, brother doing prison time for meth manufacturing, sister alcoholic, mother alcoholic, the list is very long and painful… How I became so "normal" and accomplished (relatively) is nothing short of a miracle but also had EVERYTHING to do with moving 1500 miles away as fast as I could.

SO MUCH unresolved baggage followed me into adulthood. It took over a decade living away from them—to work through my own side of all of it. Unfortunately, I naively included my sister in part of those healing conversations and in her alcoholic stupor, gossiped with my mother about all of it, twisting and destroying any value of it and working up my alcoholic mother into an attack on me that lasted for about 2 years… until I could no longer handle it. I was growing to HATE her and I worried it was destroying any relationship we might have left. So I told her and my step father that I was taking a break from them. For 2 years I didn't communicate with her. The way she responded about it (to others) was if I had tried to kill her… the drama was overflowing...

Little did I know that I was also very sick with lyme & co at that time… and I was experiencing a lot of lyme rage but didn't know what it was. I think this contributed significantly with not being able to handle the situation with my mother better at the time. She is an expert at being the victim of everything that happens to her and me taking a break from her helped feed that neurotic need to be the expert victim.

Ten years passed since all this happened and she still can't take any responsibility for it—and quite honestly, she couldn't remember what really happened if she tried (she is more of a drug and alcohol addict now than before). But we are in a better place, now.

So, in retrospect, was it the right thing for me to do? Probably not. I do regret that others in the family blamed me for being a horrible person—not having a clue what was really going on at the time. And I know it really hurt her to the core, and even though she deserved it it was never my intention to hurt her.

But it was all I knew how to do. I didn't know how to handle it any better—certainly never learned better coping skills from any of my parents. I had to teach myself just about everything and that is usually not a graceful process. ;) But eventually, I learned… the hard way.

I confronted her about what happened a couple of years ago before I became completely consumed by the lyme & co… and we never finished the conversation partially because I just ran out of energy to deal with an addict. And partly because I realized that she is never going to deal with that reality, she's never going to be who I have always needed her to be. And nothing is going to take that hurt or disappointment away or make it feel better but my own ability to grow past it.

Marigold—
Only you know what is right for you and your situation. NOTHING is forever and taking a break can sometimes be the best thing you can do for long-term benefits. But it does come at a price and you have to understand it and accept it.

Also—yes, your body holds memories in its tissues. It's a fascinating thing, really. I was not always a detoxer but when I started doing that a couple of years ago, I would experience extreme reactions—mostly psychological and reliving bad, sorrowful memories and maybe even anger during detoxing. Turns out—this is pretty normal. And it's been well-established that your psychological disposition can either make or break a physical recovery from illness.

As others have mentioned, you need time to heal, which is the best thing you can do for yourself and for your relationships.

-p

Post Edited (Pirouette) : 1/19/2015 11:05:15 AM (GMT-7)

Posted 1/19/2015 8:47 PM (GMT 0)
Thank you all so much for engaging with me around this tricky subject. I deeply appreciate all of the interesting responses.

xfmlg- I'm so sorry to hear of the pain you are in regarding the estrangement in your family. It sounds awful. I'm not surprised that my post made you think of it. I promise you it's a different situation for me. I don't really want to get into it a whole lot, but I'll just say, my mom's been diagnosed as a sociopath and has explained to me that contact with me is like a drug for her, and she only gets the "hit" when she's sure she's caused me pain. It's strange that she has so much consciousness around her pathology and is able to articulate it so well. But it did help me understand, though of course I didn't want to believe it. But it explains a a lot. The hitting while laughing and other really creepy stuff. My father was sexually abusive, my mother knew and did nothing, etc., etc.. I have taken "breaks" before, then returned to have contact with my family, to give it more tries. But the fact is, growing up I was always the caretaker and perfectly fine, and since I have become sick, it is they who no longer have interest in me. Seeing me sick makes them furious. My mother saw me having a seizure and her response was to physically assault me... I realized she could do real damage to me if I spend time with her before I'm well again. I am not estranged, per se, now... Just removed. In fact, I have begged my parents to let me take a month to stay with them and do some healing in their home (It is so hard to work enough to pay for this treatment, I thought having housing taken care of for a month would really help). But as long as I'm sick I'm not invited. BEFORE I was sick they wanted me around all the time, I was the shining light of their life or whatever. So I think you will understand, it's a bit of a different situation.

IHL- I love that you disagree with the notion that if you don't heal yourself emotionally, you won't heal physically. I keep hearing that philosophy (hazard of living in California? ;) and I feel like it puts SO much pressure on the sick person. I guess I think there is a connection between emotional and physical health, but to so simplify it is really problematic.

mauiihawaii- It sounds really hard to have a mom who considers herself a victim so much, especially of her children. How backwards for the children. Thanks for sharing about your friend, and for your support with my having to step away from my family.

Traveler- Thanks so much for the thoughts and support. As always!! Reduced contact, indeed. The truth is, despite everything, I love my parents more than I could ever say. It just seems like contact with them is at the expense of my survival right now. But I love them and it's nice to remember these things aren't black & white, it may not be a permanent separation, or a complete separation.

sayyadina- I can TOTALLY relate about the lyme not becoming apparent until the family stress is removed from the picture. I didn't realize I was sick until my blood pressure was 70/40 and I couldn't walk down the stairs out of my apartment-- because I was sooo skilled at focusing 100% on my mother's wellbeing. Having the separation now, I witness myself more clearly and am shocked at how sick I am, and bewildered at how dissociated I must have been for it to get so far.

Pirouette- Yet again I feel like we're cut from the same cloth!! Thanks for sharing.

eileen- "You can only change yourself" Oh my goodness if this isn't the lesson for my lifetime! I have spent so many years trying to "heal" my mother, realizing at last that she doesn't want to heal, but was actually just thriving on the pathological contact. I do believe on a more spiritual level that stepping away is the most loving thing I can do. Thanks for the support.
Posted 1/20/2015 2:45 AM (GMT 0)
Have you looked into EFT ? (Emotional Freedom Technique, also called tapping.)

I really recommend it.

Check out Amy B. Scher's website! Amy went to India for a stem cell transplant to heal herself from Lyme and co-infections, as well as many other health issues. She also learned EFT to help self-heal.

http://amybscher.com

Check out Amy's free toolkit, too:
http://amybscher.com/healing-articles-inspiration-resources/

I am reading The Emotion Code right now. It's pretty fascinating.
Posted 1/20/2015 3:15 AM (GMT 0)
I think it's not just abuse, but also enabling bad behavior in other people, and taking on their emotional toxicity. And yes, many folks with chronic illness were abused.

I've noticed that some of the women with Lyme appear to be married to men who are abusing them in some form or another.

My problem is that I never had clear boundaries, and was/am too vulnerable to, well, basically my entire environment, other people etc. My mother was a big-time enabler, and she died of ALS at the age of 72. She perceived of herself as old and used up.

I'm an enabler too, which is one of the reasons it's so good for me to be single right now. It least I'm one step ahead of my Mom (so far), but I don't know whether the damage to my body is irreversible or not. Of course, I've realized that you can also enable bad behaviors in friendships, and even in relationship to yourself (i.e. be your "own" enabler).

Margaret
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