loving our chronically ill bodies
We have to love our bodies more.
We have to understand our bodies are doing the best it can to take care of us - to manage incredibly varied demands across multiple systems, organs, and cells.
This may be an incredibly radical statement. Perhaps my privilege or bias might be too confrontational here. Feel free to ignore me if this is grinding your gears or triggering. I say the above as a chronically ill person myself, without the resources for proper health insurance, who may or may not be in the midst of contracting a worse, preventable condition or plunging into a premature death.
I say this as a daughter who has been a caretaker for my chronically ill mother as a teenager and young adult. The very same mother who called to inform me last night that she has a brain aneurysm, 4mm and nothing to be done besides monitor it and hope for the best.
I understand that bodies can be flawed, hostile. Inflammatory, destructive, inconsolable, inexplicably crossing signals that have no business crossing and not doing its job as its been entrusted to do.
Also, I understand saying this to someone who is actively sick, suffering, and in pain may be insensitive. You have every right to feel the way you feel - to be angry, scared, disappointed, in grief, shock, and any other emotions or myriad of combinations. In fact, expressing it is a form of relief itself. I'm not trying to police anyone for a very shitty situation. I'm sorry you are experiencing this.
I don't have the right answers, the perfect thing to say, but this is my blog and I get to try to express what I feel deserves space to be said, even if I'm obtuse and clumsy about it. My intentions are to petition for more peace with all parts of ourselves, including our bodies.
Regardless if our body is cooperating or making us miserable, I think we could benefit from being kind in how we interact, talk to and about our bodies.
We are not separate from our bodies - and our bodies, just like our mind and spirit, are always there listening, absorbing, responding to the environment around us and the thoughts and beliefs within us.
Remember when they said the mind is a powerful thing? That even placebos can incite significant and meaningful change to how we heal?
In that Harvard article, it states:
The attention and emotional support you give yourself is often not something you can easily measure, but it can help you feel more comfortable in the world, and that can go a long way when it comes to healing.
The quality and ritualistic action we take to take care of ourselves, including our relationship with our bodies, plays a role in how we can find harmony in an inflamed body - or at least offer an olive branch, from our mind to our body.
Forgive me for lacking a better metaphor, but imagine a previously abused and terrified stray dog or cat. If we wanted to befriend it and rehabilitate it to a healthier and happier state, how would one accomplish this?
We might be patient, compassionate, allow it time and space to adjust, to let them warm up to us and the environment. This may take days, weeks, months, years - and they may always have a paranoia or trigger that might set them back.
What would not be helpful is yelling at them, screaming at them for not making progress, not behaving or adjusting fast enough according to your expectations, constantly expressing frustration and annoyance when you are dealing with them, etc.
Yet this is far too common in how we treat ourselves, and especially our bodies. If it isn't productive for those animals, why would it be productive for ourselves? We too are animals.
Berating and bullying ourselves in an already vulnerable and weakened state creates more tension and friction in our bodies, causing us to be on guard and activate us to a heightened sympathetic state - ready to fight, take flight, or freeze entirely.
If all our energy is feeding into that immediate survival mode, when will we ever get to the parasympathetic state where our bodies can rest and digest?
Again, I don't have the right answers or right things to say. Maybe I'm making an arse out of myself. But I'm trying my best here to plead for self-compassion. I think we deserve presence with ourselves. To forgive our bodies for its shortcomings. We deserve to accept ourselves wholly in where we're at and being curious and patient in exploring what our bodies are trying to tell us. They are communicating, trying to signal what is needed - whether we like their methods or not.
If we can only interact with the world in limited instances because of our conditions and our bodies, then how can we make those limited instances count? What are the most important things to prioritize with our finite spoons?
Ideally, we could have it all, but even a healthy body has its limit. When our hands are tied, it becomes more important than ever to let the unessential fall away. You don't have the energy or capacity to spare for it.
We are all marching slowly to our deaths, so how can we live while we still can?
Despite all the suffering, my gratitude for simply having a body — one that allows me to experience life — outweighs my depression, anxiety, and fleeting hopelessness.
Here's to finding some peace with our bodies, however that looks like for each of us.
Sending love and care to you and your bodies.
Thanks for being here. ♥︎
Sincerely,
Nadine