I am very close to feeling calm, and I was recalling today a study I read some years ago that 100% of people who had exceptionally poor relationships with both parents had serious illnesses in their 40’s. When I read that, of course I was a bit worried, since for all intents and purposes I am an orphan with two living parents with whom it is simply impossible to communicate at more than a superficial level. I Googled, something, and the study above came up. This quote is relevant to my own experience:
Imagine for a moment that your body receives its stress hormones and
chemicals through an IV drip that’s turned on high when needed and, when
the crisis passes, it’s switched off again. You might think of kids
whose brains have undergone epigenetic changes because of early
adversity as having an inflammation-promoting drip of fight-or-flight
hormones turned on every day – it’s as if there is no off switch.
I have not been sick. Other than a minor surgery to fix a muscular injury, which really doesn’t count, I have been 100% free of physical ailments, even though I’m sure my ACE score is 3 or above. I don’t really want to know. I have had more than one therapist look at me in wonderment at my relative stability, given my history.
And here is why I think I have not gotten sick: I chose, at age 16, to fucking FIGHT for sanity. I didn’t know what to do. I did not know where to go. I had no idea what was wrong with me, but I knew something was, that I did not process the world like most other people. My entire adult life has been oriented around the task of gathering wisdom and learning, on the deepest level I could reach. This has been everything to me.
And I really think that has made the difference. You can see my battles here. What do I have, 3,000 posts or more? This, even though I’m not really sure more than one or two people read it, and I’m not sure even they read it regularly. This blog is the fight, or part of it. This blog is a part of the not giving in, the telling my unconscious that I will continue, I will fight on, I will never quit.
No one can heal me. The scars are much too deep, and in any event it is unfair to ask anyone else to carry your cross. I am the one who needs to do it, and I am DOING it. It is not theoretical. I am feeling better every day. One day soon I will greet the sunrise without fear.