I like my life to be neat and tidy. I like my projects to be completed. I like my stories to have clear endings. When I was little, I hated those “choose your own adventure” books because I’d have to read through it multiple times so I knew all of the possible endings that could’ve occurred, and I was always left with this uneasy feeling, thinking that maybe I missed something – that the story wasn’t fully complete. I like books that have an ending. That have some closure. That trace a journey from start to finish.
So when I started getting sick and when the symptoms started appearing, I immediately created my “healing story” in my head, and of course, it had a nice, clean cut ending where I was all of a sudden completely healed. I pictured my future self one day telling everyone the story of “back when I was sick”, and I saw myself connecting all the dots in the story to show exactly how I got from A to B. I pictured writing a book about the steps to heal, and of course, those steps were in a logical order that gradually pulled me out of suffering and into health. And you know, you could heal too, if only you followed the exact steps that I did, outlined here for you in a color-coded flow chart.
I loved this image so much. I glued myself to this ideal. At first, it made being sick more manageable, because I felt like all I had to do was follow the steps that were sure to unveil themselves on my upward journey out of hell. I remember thinking “of COURSE I can heal. This isn’t so bad after all – it’s all just laid out here in front of me. And one day soon I’ll get one heck of a story out of this process.”
But here I am, two years later, and while I’ve climbed quite a few of those healing steps, I’ve also fallen down flights of stairs I didn’t know existed. My healing has not been a linear process, like my Type A personality imagined it would be. It’s been a journey of significant ups, major downs, and a whole lot of sideways turns. Just when I discover one step that works for me, I find that the next step crumbles, and I’m forced to go all the way back down and find another route.
I have yet to draw a clear connection from ANY point A to ANY point B, and my illness continues to create new Point X’s and Point G’s and Point M’s, all out of order.
As it turns out, my perfect healing story isn’t so perfect after all.
What I’ve learned is that healing isn’t linear, no matter how hard we want it to be. For most of our lives, we’ve been taught to draw connections and build patterns. So I’ve spent most of my illness trying to draw connections from the point of sickness to the point of health. I also learned this approach from the medical system, and from the doctors who tried to treat me. And when the doctors couldn’t make clean connections from the symptoms to the improved results, they told me it was just in my head. They didn’t and wouldn’t believe in an illness that wasn’t linear and clear and organized and neat. They made me feel like I was crazy, and sent me on my way.
I spent the next two years trying to prove to them that I could heal, and while this was a noble goal, I went about it in the wrong way. I was waiting for the day I could bring this step-by-step healing plan to them that I had devised on my own, just to rub it in their faces that they were wrong. Which a) is a TERRIBLE reason to try to heal yourself, and b) really, really, really isn’t actually how healing works.
So today, I’m trying to embrace the messiness of this journey, and to let go of all the half-drawn lines I’ve been dragging around with me, searching for somewhere to connect them. As it turns out, they were really freakin’ heavy, and ended up just keeping me tied to one spot.
I’m letting go of the need to prove those doctors wrong, because at the end of the day, they were right that my healing journey wasn’t something they could fix with their tool kits, and they were right that they really had nothing to offer me for this journey. I now have doctors who believe me, support me, and walk through the mud of this illness with me. And really, I never should have been trying to heal for them, or for anyone else.
I’m letting go of the comfort that a linear healing story brought me. The anxiety of the unknown parts of this illness used to cripple me. The fear of what the future would bring used to knock the air out of my lungs. And this linear idea of healing was my crutch. But while it helped me get through at first, its holding me back now. Its keeping me small, slow, and cautious. It’s preventing me from trying new things, embracing new ideas, and facing this illness head on. I’m letting go of the idea that I can predict this illness, or that I even need to.
I’m letting go of the idea that if I’m not moving up the staircase, I must be moving down. As it turns out, healing isn’t just an upward or a downward movement. Just because you’re walking up one staircase, making great time and finding every single step at just the right moment, doesn’t mean that this staircase is the right one for you. You might get to the top just to discover it actually turns around and heads down. And just because you’re going down one staircase doesn’t mean it’s the wrong one for you either. Sometimes we need to go down to get to a new entrance, a new path that we wouldn't otherwise have seen.
Healing is not linear. And that’s okay. We need to stop fighting to climb the staircase all the way to the top, and berating ourselves when we’re going in the "wrong" direction. We need to let go of all the lines we're trying so desperately to connect. Sometimes, healing just doesn't make sense. And that's okay.
I’m letting go of the idea that the end of my healing journey is at the top or the bottom of this staircase. I'm letting go of the idea that there even ever will be an "end" to my healing journey. Healing is not defined by the direction of our climb. Healing is not defined by how many steps we jump or how many steps we tumble down. Healing is not predictable, not linear, not neat. It really is a "choose your own adventure", and embracing the uncertainty in that is page one.