Could you tell me a time your body taught your mind to slow down?
Monday May 1st 2017, a day the sofa swallowed me whole, the day my legs gave way, the day a thick heavy fog settled into my brain, the day my body resembled lead, the day that mirrored many yet to come.
That day I got up like many before, it was early, I needed to get the dog walked, I needed to check my emails before I left for work, I needed to check my phone for any news on family down south. I needed to look smart as I had a important meeting, I needed to make sure I had all my notes sorted, I needed to make sure my team knew where I was going to be that day, I need to be at my best this day.
As I set out to walk my dog, the sun was starting to rise, the night sky was shifting into day, and the air smelt of rich earthy tones as the sun shone onto the damp ground.
One step, another step and then another, the ground was damp, but the ground felt like sinking sand, puling me down towards the earth. As I shifted and stumbled around the field everything felt so loud, so bright and yet so dark, and empty.
I heaved my body back through the door, and willed the sofa to catch me as my body gave way.
That day the sofa swallowed me whole.
A week later my doctor helped me along the corridor, as I used the wall to prop me up. The ground felt uneven, the lights were blinding, and the sounds of the doctor’s surgery were deafening.
A chair, held my weight as my head dropped forward my body unable to have the strength to hold it up.
As I studied my doctors shoes, his voice came calm and steady , “Laura you have Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, also know an as ME, I am going to sign you off work for 2 months, and then 6 months, and you may not be able to work again… there is a 5% recovery rate.”
As this news clambered its way through the fog in my brain, I felt my body sink lower, words, and thoughts drifted through my mind. My body had stopped my ability to function, it was holding me in the present moment, making me feel, making me be, making me have to notice every little thing, from thoughts, emotions to all bodily sensations.
It was torture and discovery encapsulated into one.
Before ‘the day the sofa swallowed me whole’ I was 35, just completed MA in illustration, I was working for a charity as a Art Therapist in a role I had been hankering after for most of my career, I was training for a trail race and I was dealing with some complex family health and mental health challenges. There was no doubt life was full, and in October 2016 my body started to throw up signs that something wasn’t right. Enter six moths of tests, blood being taken, hospital procedures, and the general feeling of being poked and prodded.
I felt rubbish, but not rubbish enough to stop, so what I had a temperature, so what I couldn’t eat food very well anymore, so what my back was agony, so what my skin was suddenly becoming allergic to everything, and so what my hair was falling out. To me it still wasn’t enough to make me stop, until my body did.
Enter the feeling of relief; I was never going to give myself permission to stop, so my body did.
The day the sofa swallowed me whole was the day I had to learn to listen, not tune out of the pain or the thoughts and the darkness that had lain unawaken in the depths of my soul. Now it was here, present and it was ready to be seen and heard.
Did I want to see the depths of the darkness, NO! Did I want to be swallowed by the sofa, NO!
But did I appreciate the reason to step of the merry go round that was starting to spin out of control, YES!
The months and years that followed saw a slow and steady ebb and flow of communication to body and mind, to what I felt I needed to what I really needed.
Instead of fighting and denying my CFS I got to know it, I even named it, became friends with it, and started to understand it.
By acknowledging it was there as a part of me, it allowed me to stop, notice when I needed and still do need to stop. It allowed me to be in the days that were so dark, where it felt unjust, like my whole life had been ripped away, as it lead me to realise it hadn’t been ripped away, it had been readjusted and I was learning this new way of being.
Three years later I do all the things I love again, I work for myself, I run workshops, I illustrate and I work as an art therapist and spend hours out on my bike.
The day the sofa swallowed me whole; it brought darkness with a beauty nestled deep within.
May 1st 2017 ended one way of being and started a new one.
