Lyme Disease: A Journey Through Healing
About halfway through my Lyme disease treatment, I feel the need to express how I feel about myself in this moment.
My entire life, I’ve had that inner critic always up my ass, never stopping to remind me of the incredible and sometimes insanely challenging things I’ve overcome. I call that voice Felicia. No offense to anyone with that name, it just came to me one day. Once I named her, I felt my deep anger toward this voice. She’s a real bitch, I said. But then I realized that I needed to love her, to focus that love strongly and for as long as needed until a major shift occurred. Sometimes I close my eyes and hug her tight; other times, I give her some expensive chocolate and treat her to loving words. I’ve grown patient with Felicia. I’ve learned to laugh with her and sing away the dark thoughts. So today, she and I deserve some big-time love and celebration for being so damn unstoppable. For moving through some of the scariest pain episodes, for being ignored for years by doctors, for being scared of dying young, for finding joy in isolation.
Lyme disease is the most aggressive illness I’ve ever experienced. It changes you forever. It can take your life apart if you let it, and it can pull away your pure authenticity and take your light.
This journey has felt like the most shamanic-like purification—so deeply intense. I’ve had so many tears, sobs of grief, and bone-shapeshifting releases.
Deep physical wounds from my past are coming up and out. Some days are overwhelming, and others are calmer, with more ease. I purge and detox as I go, and as the bacteria dies in my body, so does my past. I’ve had such palpable moments of being right back in the 5-year-old Diana’s body, the 10-year-old body—the child so full of anxiety and chaos. Never knowing where she was going to live or land. Lost in the fast-paced world spinning around her. I used to dream of tornadoes as a kid, waking up screaming as the mass of spinning air ripped toward me with such violence. I know now that the mirror of those dreams was simply trying to show me the state of my emotional self—spinning with a mighty force, strong yet unstable.
As horrific as Lyme disease truly is, I’m grateful for the shadow of it all. It’s forced me to go inward in ways I never knew possible. I’ve gone into the darkest depths of myself these past weeks and reached back into the daylight.
I’ve been so scared yet so steady in my determination. Always looking to the sky and letting that heavenly light blanket me. Always reaching to nature’s stillness to pull me back into my body.
Sometimes I feel like I’m walking the edge of life and death, and all that it means for us. I feel the essence of the other side so clearly now. I know it’s the guidance I’m sure I need, but it’s big. I feel my passed loved ones walking me through difficult memories, holding me in dark moments, celebrating me when I return to my crystalline self.
I’ve been in subconscious conversations with Lyme bacteria for many years, and I’m still learning why it’s here and what we are asked to do with it. There’s so much to say, and I do hope I can share it soon. Many times, it has felt like an angry being—something nasty that I need to pull out with all my might. Yet now, there are times I see that as actually myself. The anger is mine, and it’s been so suppressed for so long that it has practically taken over me. As a small child, I kept it all in my body, every single drop of the rage. I had to. It’s what kept me safe at the time. At least, that’s what my little brain told me. More recently, I’m also learning to love this rage and how powerful it really is. I think back to all the times it actually saved my life—not just mine, but also my son’s. It has pulled me through abuse, danger, childbirth, and fiercely protecting what I love most. It is fuel for alchemy, and I’m learning how to wield it.
The dark times we feel we are in now mirror the shadow of Lyme disease. There is no better time to do what you fear most, to face the treacherous seas of trauma stored in your body. Without treatment for so many years, I’ve had to sink deep into the hardest pain—pain that keeps me from moving and forces me to surrender to everything. The only way out of it in those moments is through. As I sink deeper into it, memories arise—birth trauma, childhood memories of neglect and abandonment, grief from deep loss, and words I was never able to express. I have to honor these feelings, these moments in time, and usually re-process what I could not back then while in pain. This is what I mean by bone-toiling shapeshifting.
However, there is one thing I’m learning for certain right now, and that’s that your body will never give you more than you can handle. Your body is working hard every day to keep you safe. Our bodies are so incredibly intelligent. We are so fucking strong! So please, don’t ever doubt that you are capable of swimming freely through pain and illness of any kind. Let it shapeshift your soul. Lyme disease is a prominent teacher in this lifetime for me. A healing teacher that is walking me through letting go of my biggest traumas, walking me up to my demons to converse, extracting energies left over from the most toxic people in my life. I hold tight to this gratitude for this teacher as I move through the harder moments.
I’ve been alone a lot in this process as well. Deep in darkness and tears some days, and others reaching back to my dragon energy, my creativity, and my magick. I know I’m coming back to my body, and it’s a slow process. I trust this and continue to practice trust in other avenues of my life. That all will fall into place and that we will all be okay.
In my daily walks in nature, which continue to help me move through this, I’ve been working on a playlist of songs that have really been supporting my heart. I’m sharing it with you here as I continue to work on it. I hope you feel it in these songs too, deep in your spirit.
Love,
Diana
Images by Jess Rhoades