Recovery, It's Not Just for Addicts

I am trying to recover from biotoxin illness. 

My immune system collapse due to employer negligence with industrial chemicals including the misuse and overuse of pesticides.

As I was getting back on my feet, my family allowed a leaky sink to cause my second collapse with toxic black mold.

...but my real medical, clinical symptoms and skeletal condition were just in my head. That is what I was told repeatedly.

Now that my family disowned me, I am recovering inch by inch with miles to go. Every inch is sweet. Of course, every set back is frustrating too. 

When you have a chronic and debilitating illness and people like your family make fun of you, it is really difficult to want to have camaraderie again. I have noticed that when someone is at a distance, I feel better. Our relationship is good.

But when someone is in touching distance of me, well, I am uncomfortable. I guess when someone is abused as I have been that being shy of close connection is not unusual. It's a survival mechanism. 

And, I am a survivor. 

If you do not understand the illness, then support the person the best you can. Be positive but not harassing. Believe me, the ill person will be grateful you care, but do not be disappointed that the ill person remains ill. 

My family thought that I should be able to run around and do chores for them. Or, do all my chores. So when I did not get better from their constant hounding and negativity, my family told others I was an addict and psychotic, which no one with an M.D. or Ph.D. could ever prove even with blood tests. Many terrible things were done to me as a result.  

But recovery from a prolonged illness has many of the hallmarks of recovering from an addiction. First, all your friends are not your friends anymore. Most, if not all, your family ignores you. Your requests for help and support go largely unanswered except for people who are paid to help and support you.

The only difference between being ill and being an addict is understanding from society. Addicts get support groups and therapists. I don't. Addicts receive adequate medical care. I don't. Addicts get legal services and protection under the law. I don't. Addicts have people who they can turn to... well, you get the picture. 

I am not ill by choice. Others chose this path for me. I hope one day people with invisible disabilities like chronic, lifelong illnesses will receive the same societal understanding and respect as others do already. 

It's not a crime to be ill, but it sure does feel like it. I had to go through a Disability Review recently, which I passed because I am truly ill, but the treatment I received placed my health and life in jeopardy. The situation was not fun and I nearly died. 

I am not okay with what happened to me especially since my family tortured and imprisoned me. 

Like Kermit the Frog said: It's not easy being green."

So, what will you do to help your elderly or sick neighbor? They could really use your helping hand at least once a month. If your whole neighborhood assisted others who cannot help themselves, America would be a much brighter place.

Thank you!

Coming Out of the Closet

No, not me! hahahaa! My cat! My cat!

My family took off my closet doors so I have curtains hanging there instead. My linx colorpoint shorthair believes that hiding in my curtains is a game. No matter how many times I squirt him. It's all fun and games to him! 

As for my closet doors, my family did as an incompetent but world renown naturopath said, like seven months later, to remove the carpet and everything from my room so I would stop "reacting, " which is code for stop complaining about my neglect and abuse. A couple of fine points here: when you don't clean the rest of the house, the air conditioner brings in the crap from the outside of the room into the so-called "sanctuary" that was supposed to be set up. 

Incompetence.

Then there is the matter of my clothing. My family took all of the clothing in my closet put them in plastic bags or containers and set it all outside in the back yard under my fabric gazebo. I'll let you catch up... Heat and moisture built up inside the plastic and molded most of my clothing. The clothing that wasn't molded was used by the outside vermin to live in. I discovered clots of hair, vomit, urine, and feces. 

Incompetence. 

So several thousand dollars worth of clothing was destroyed and here my sister threatened me over her beloved concert Tshirts. Yet it was okay to destroy my entire wardrobe. 

My siblings wonder why people hand me responsibility and not them. 

The closet doors were also set outside to mold. So I had to throw those away, hence the curtains. I bought some nice curtains too. I cannot paint so I did the next best thing. 

My family did a little more than destroy clothing and some closet doors, they pretty much vandalized my house and then left me with nothing. Again, the reason other family members leave me in charge of their affairs or projects, I respect other people's wishes. My family just does whatever the hell they please and walks away as if they have done nothing wrong. 

Actually they go around blaming others for their actions... so I am glad I can play squirt the kitty rather than having more of my personal items stolen or damaged. Yeah, they did steal from me too. 

It's amazing what people will rationalize when they are the ones doing wrong to someone else, especially when they made that person sick, wouldn't face up to their responsibility and then left a 90 pound person all alone in a house so they did not have to deal with me anymore. 

I'm telling you these things because I never want it to happen to another ill person again. If you mess up, make it right. Don't just throw a person in their bedroom and threaten them if they speak out about the conditions they're living in. Do the right thing: get help for yourself so you can make a bad situation into a manageable one.

As for me, I'm doing so much better than I ever thought I could because complete strangers stepped in and got me on the road to recovery. One simple email and some phone calls. My family could have done these actions years before if they were interested in making me well. They weren't. They were playing the sympathy game with everyone on the outside by calling me a psycho. Sorry, I am not. I have a medical condition, not a psychiatric one.

Incompetence. 

The only way to show how morally and ethically bankrupt you are. Please avoid at all costs. It may just save someone else's life.

MCS/EI/Mold and Lyme are severe and critical medical conditions, please show your support by being understanding to someone who is medically ill by not making fum of them, criticizing them, neglecting or abusing them, and not threatening them with institutionalization like I was. 

It's simply a matter of competence.

Have a great and wonderful day.

Family, Friends, and Other Fantasy Creatures

Have you ever wanted to be someone else?

I find that I have those thoughts occur more often these days. Since I live virtually in a bubble for my own health and protection, I like to fantasize about going to the movies, theater, or anywhere... that isn't here.

Could you imagine living without much or any human contact? I have some friends who call but it isn't the same as sitting down and talking with someone over tea and crumpets. Okay, so I don't have tea or even any funny shaped finger sandwiches, but you get the point. 

I often dream of having people who weren't scared to be my friends. Who would help when I needed it without strings attached or complaint. Who wanted to be around me without chemicals or poisons on their person. 

But who am I kidding?

If my own family would not make the sacrifices I have to now on a daily basis, thanks in part to their unthinking and unfeeling actions about a leaky kitchen faucet that created the black mold that almost killed me (after an irresponsible employer and illegal pesticides and fungus/mold in the buildings/air ducts that nearly killed me approximately eighteen months earlier), why would anyone else on this planet make any concessions to be my cell mate? Even for an hour?

It is a sad and terrible realization to know that you are in it for the long haul... and in it alone.

I'm glad that I was made an introvert. I can stand lengths of time in silence, but I am still a human girl. I like to imagine me in ball gowns, party dresses, curled hair, perfect make up, and high heeled shoes. 

That is just a fantasy of what could have been. 

If only people would stop and think about how their actions or even inactions could affect other people. I guess that is another fantasy of mine: people who take responsibility.

I was erroneously under the impression that if you do wrong to someone you make it up to that person better than how you harmed them. Another fantasy...

And, that family or friends would take a minute to walk in my shoes before they ignore what they have done to me and still feel they are allowed to call me names.

After all I did to keep the family together... why would you treat me this way? Make me sick? Threaten me? Isolate me? Refuse medical treatment for me? Steal from me? Hit me? Bully me? Yell and scream at me? Refuse me basic care? Then abandon me for dead when you illicit the negative reaction you wanted after years of this torture to justify your getaway? Give me a break.

Even though I was very sick and fragile during the neglect, abuse, and torture, the brain has a way of saving it for later. So I remember what happened to me. All of it.

The night terrors continue... like the one that woke me with a blood curdling scream this morning.

I maybe alone, but I rather entertain what could have been then to see or hear from family or friends ever again who don't know the value of a person.

Afternoon Naps and Other Forms of Healing

Even for adults studies have shown that naps in the afternoon are great for the body, mind, soul, and spirit. 

I now have to take daily naps. Two or three hours in addition to the twelve to sixteen I sleep daily makes for a short day. Chronic fatigue is a symptom of my MCS/EI/Mold illnesses.  

It's a tough pill to swallow even if I am allergic to most pharmaceuticals.  I like when I have the energy to get something done. Often, I have to budget my time and make command decisions on what can and cannot be done in a day. 

Some chores get sacrificed for others. Dishes... I hate dishes especially since my hands are dry, cracked, and bleeding most of the time. My body cannot keep oil in itself so water and soap make a bad situation even worse. Laundry is pretty simple. Vacuuming once a week. Dusting is whenever.

Since I require a lot of fresh air from open windows, dust accumulates. Welcome to the desert! So dusting is not a task I put much stock into. It gets done when it gets done. 

When my windows are not open, I must rely on my air cleaners. That is: heavy duty air cleaners. These cleaners run all day and night, windows opened or closed plus I have a MERV 12 air filter in my heatpump unit. 

It is not my lungs per se; it is my liver. The mold and mercury inside my body hiding in organs and other tissues as well as in bonded molecular components eats up my sulfur, antioxidants, and methyl groups. I must also eat protein all day in order to assist my liver in maintaining some type of control (and we haven't even covered the renal damage from black mold found in my kidneys). 

Without my liver stabilized, I am unable to breathe properly and I require oxygen supplementation. The liver does many great tasks for the body. One of which is breaking down harmful substances into non-harmful substances. When my body has to concentrate on the already high amount of toxins and biotoxins in me, my liver cannot self-regulate. So I become allergic to the air I breathe, water I drink, and food I eat. 

Scary.

For instance, a few weeks ago I had a tablespoon of buttermilk ranch and had a severe allergic reaction while I was eating a tomato. I had had ranch for months without an issue, but that night my body decided that a line had been crossed. I have no idea how or why but regular ranch dressing is okay and buttermilk ranch is not. 

Talk about frustrating. I have to wait for my body to stop reacting until I can even try a tomato again or risk a permanent allergy. Isn't chronic illness wonderful?!

Now try to explain this scenario to people who do not have these types of sudden and unclear reactions. Others try to understand but then stop because it is easier to label someone crazy, insane, or psychotic than to realize the symptoms are real and part of a larger toxic cascade happening in the body. 

I have had the experience of knowing and living with people who rather bully you, isolate you, and threaten institutionalization instead of doing the right thing. Right being: researching the issue within the community that has said medical problems, finding the best course of treatment, and following through by getting the patient to the right physician. 

Sounds simple, right? Do the right thing by another person. 

As a former caretaker of my elderly mother, I always did the right thing by the person I was taking care of. When the roles were reversed, my parental unit and siblings decided to ignore the medical issues in lieu of scare tactics. 

Because of course someone that sick cannot possibly be mentally stable. 

Truth be told: the people who neglect, abuse, and torture someone who is physically, medically, or mentally ill are not only criminals but are morally and ethically corrupt to the point beyond rehabilitation.

In order to combat the cyclical night terrors associated with being terrorized, I have discovered meditation. Guided meditations on youtube and other free websites have become routine and helpful. I am glad I found them.

Rewiring a damaged/injured brain due to lack of medical attention is essential to combating reactionary impulses in the primitive brain. Plus I have cognitive issues as well as Central Nervous System damage stemming from systematic inflammation. 

I may not be able to drive, remember much in my short term memory, or use hand-eye coordination, but I am finding new and unorthodox ways to recreate neural pathways so I may recover some of what was lost over the past five years.