Control vs. Ease

Sometime in the months just after Tikva died, I took a book off my bookshelf and started reading the section about pregnancy. The book, Healing With Whole Foods, is written by a practitioner of Chinese medicine, which I have found great healing in over the years. I still do: acupuncture is amazing for my body, and my acupuncturist has become a guide and friend on this journey since I was still pregnant with Tikva. I don't remember what I sought in that moment as I read this piece of the book - perhaps an answer to the whys of Tikva's short life and death.

What I found was not comforting; in fact, it was so disconcerting that I closed the book, put it back on the shelf, and haven't picked it up since. I don't remember exactly how it was worded, but in essence it talked about the toxins that can weaken our bodies, and how if enough gets toxic in the body, and if the organs of the body are not strong enough, things can happen in response - things like disease... things like birth defects. In essence, this book was suggesting that it was very possible that my body caused my daughter's birth defect. And it had the audacity to suggest that with enough cleansing, enough eating of the right foods, enough staying away from "bad" things, enough taking charge and controlling what goes in and what goes out, I might actually have been able to prevent what happened to my daughter.

The arrogance. Let's just say I no longer revere the contents of this book in the way I used to. Let's say that I take it all with a huge grain of salt. I am much more skeptical now, recognizing there are no absolutes. The author might think he knows how to cure all, heal all, make all "bad" things go away, but he really has no idea. No idea. Arrogance and ego, that's what it is. He actually thinks we have control over any of it?

Yes, I was triggered. Majorly triggered. In the deepest place you could possibly imagine. Triggered in that place of body memory about every single physical challenge I have ever had...

Compulsive overeating leading to...
The most uncomfortable 5 years of my life weighing 50 pounds too much for my body.
Severe acne on my face for 3 years after I lost the weight, including 2 years on antibiotics.
Parasites a year later which were undiagnosed for 3 years until they caused...
Colitis, which I had for two years, during which I wavered between size 0 and size 2, and took so many drugs and supplements for my healing.
Learning to eat normally again and regain trust that my body would be okay if I regained a normal life.
A healthy pregnancy followed by several years of feeling too depleted to even think of having a second child
(So much time wasted when I could've been having more children).
A noise in my right ear that didn't stop for 6 months, during which I barely slept.
Sometime during the years between Dahlia and my second pregnancy, the colitis came back and lingered for 2 more years.
And I miscarried.
Then I took prednisone for 3 awful months to make the colitis go away again.
And a month after being off prednisone and free of colitis, I got pregnant with Tikva.
And I got the worst case of shingles, a sign of a weakened immune system.

And you know the rest.
And I have wondered ever since if my body was just not strong enough to make a healthy child...
See why that chapter in that book was so triggering?
See why I struggle every day to trust my body?

I've had a headache for three days. I seem to get headaches around my period these days. Tightness between my eyes, in my forehead, in my temples, and a little in my neck and shoulders. Not surprisingly, when I cry I feel some release of the tension. But I know the headaches come from something internal. (As if emotions aren't internal...) Something going on with my hormones or something because of my cycle. Probably also some grief that I'm even having my period. Oh, and I'm getting zits, too. They come around my period and sometimes they come around ovulation, and sometimes they just hang out all month long. Not nearly as bad as during college, when they were everywhere all the time and nothing could make them go away, not even two years of antibiotics. (Which, by the way, is about the worst thing you can ever do for your immune system.)

The whole thing just makes me want to scream.

I think this is baffling to my sweet husband, who just trusts his body in a way that is so unfamiliar to me. He too was a fat kid, and he overcame it through exercise and determination. Till he was fit and muscular and a starter on the football team and a guy girls noticed for the first time as more than a friend. And for the last 11 years he's been a personal trainer, helping people get into their bodies, trust themselves, make positive change. I feel like such contrast to him so much of the time. Exercise isn't naturally compelling to me. I'm actually kind of a sloth. Even yoga feels boring these days. Last week in class I cried a lot, got into child's pose a lot, got annoyed at the dharma babble coming out of the young instructor's mouth, and left 20 minutes early.

Dave trusts my body. He trusts his body. He trusts my ovaries and my fallopian tubes and my uterus and my eggs. He trusts his organs and his sperm. He believes we can get pregnant, stay pregnant, grow a healthy baby who will live and thrive. He trusts my body. He believes I am healthy. I do too, sometimes.

He trusts in our love. That, I too trust completely.

It's the rest of it that is harder for me. Especially when I look in the mirror and see another zit and wonder what on earth is going on inside that's causing that. Especially when my head is throbbing with this dull ache and I don't know why. I get scared that my body isn't clean. I wonder if there are toxins I should be cleaning out before getting pregnant again. I worry that my hormones are imbalanced even though they have checked out fine in my bloodwork... twice. I wonder if my body is trying to tell me something. I wonder if all the banter in my head is what is causing the headache and the acne, which happen to originate, literally, in my head.

Dave says: If you believe long enough that something is wrong in your body, then something will go wrong. He's right.

Yet I'm not sure how that integrates into my experience. Does that mean that I caused all the things my body has already been through up until now? The overweight, the acne, the parasites, the colitis? Does that mean I could have prevented them? And how am I supposed to trust my body after all that? It's been over 15 years since I've been overweight, and I have spent that time between a size 4 and a size 8 - yet I still have a hard time trusting that I won't get fat again one day. I am still grossly aware of the extra fat between my thighs and now on my belly. Nobody notices the zits on my face but me, yet I can still hear the words that came out of the mouth of the young gas station attendant during college when she asked me, What happened to your face? (Yes, bitch, you did say that out loud.)

So many times I have wanted to turn back the clock and tell my 16 year old self, Oh sweetie. Put that Ben & Jerry's down and take my hand and let me hold you while you cry instead of drowning your sorrow in food.

I would say to my 20 year old self, It's not good for your body to take antibiotics for such a long time. Let's look into alternative things you can do to clear your skin. Maybe you could eat better and drink less coffee.

I would say to my 22 year old self, Shellfish are bottom feeders. They're filled with bacteria. Don't eat those, they'll give you parasites.

I would say to my 23 year old self, Keep asking for answers to why your stomach is always hurting because it isn't nothing. It's probably something big, like parasites, and they need to be treated right away before they wreak havoc on your body and cause something worse.

I would say to my 26 year old self, You are not as alone as you feel in this illness. And you will not have colitis forever. You will heal.

I would say to my 32 year old self, Eat more food to keep yourself strong as a new nursing mother. Nourish your body, rather than seeking to cleanse it. Your body is not dirty. It isn't toxic. It is just tired, depleted. It needs replenishing, nurturing.

I would say to my 35 year old self, Take the prednisone now before the colitis gets worse. Don't waste time being sick. Don't be afraid of the drugs. Just take them now and get it healed and be done with it. Detach yourself from this illness.

I would say to my 36 year old self, Trust your body.
Or maybe I would say, Wait until you feel stronger before getting pregnant again.
Or maybe I would say what I did say: Don't wait any longer. It's time now. This child is ready and so are you.
Or maybe I would say, You have no control over any of it. You can just let go and let it unfold.
Or maybe I would say, I'm sorry you are lying on the couch in so much pain with shingles. I'm sorry all this just feels like too much for your body.

Or maybe I would say, Tikva's journey is her own. You are just accompanying her. You did not cause this.

Damn. I feel tired and beat down. Sometimes I feel trapped in this body that is so much less than perfect. I can't even imagine how Tikva must've felt in her fragile vessel. No wonder she decided to let it go and return to pure spirit.

I have moments of total surrender, when I don't care how blemished or how clear my skin is because I realize that in the end, it doesn't matter. In the end, I won't need my body and it won't matter how many scars or stretch marks or blemishes I have. In the end, I am not in charge. I have moments when I really recognize how healthy and strong and mighty and well I am, even without the perfect blood test results to remind me (which I got, by the way, two months in a row).

I know people who eat perfectly, exercise regularly, live a calm existence, and die while jogging or of a sudden heart attack or they get an unexplainable cancer. WE JUST AREN'T IN CHARGE. Any idea that we are is just ego. I know that. So why do I still try to control any of it?

My great aunt Lina believes it is all just destiny, and we are all just living out our destiny in living our lives. For her, that's comforting. Sometimes, for me it is too.

I have no idea why Tikva was born so sick. I have no idea why I had to spend 20 years of my life so challenged by my body. I don't know why I wasn't blessed with smooth, clear skin this time around. I don't know why my head aches, my skin breaks out, my body decided to get shingles, my weight has fluctuated so drastically over the years.

I'm not sure if I will ever trust my body in the deep way Dave trusts his. I want to. I really do. Sometimes I do. Sometimes I don't worry about all the possible things that could go wrong. Sometimes I trust.

Sometimes I feel ease rather than a wishing I could control the uncontrollable. Ease feels so much better, yet it is so much harder to grasp these days. I don't like how I feel during these periods of lack of control. At times like this, I feel like I am grasping at straws. Like there is just not enough I can do to ever feel above water. It makes me feel tired, overwhelmed. Definitely not at ease... Ease is still the goal, though. A letting go. Holding on less tightly. Trusting. Believing.