A Glimpse Through My Eyes... A Life With Lyme Disease
- Aug 5, 2021
- 4 min read
Life with Lyme slows me down, makes me weak and tired. It requires me to start over and over, then over again. Life with Lyme is stripping and inflaming and gripping and depleting. Life with Lyme is an uphill battle that needs to be fought daily.
I can’t tell you how badly I want out of this body at times, at times of nonstop aching, nonstop upheaval. Everything I do is slow now, so very slow, everything I do has consequences… consequences that lead to more trials and anger and pain until all it feels like a vicious cycle of pain and keeping that pain at bay.
Going off important things like my diet, exercise & yoga routines, meditation and detox protocols, doesn’t help either.
Sometimes a girl just needs a drink, ya know?
Preferably vodka on the rocks…
ohh this helps…
yes, this is good…
oh the pain is subsiding… and I’m floating for awhile.
After this, most of the evening is an enjoyable experience, I twirl and dance around the kitchen like when I was young and my father would tell me to stop dancing. Oh, I loved music and could dance all day. Such joy back then, even now still, when the moment is right, when the pain is low and my energy is stable… I can still dance like I did back then without any reservation, without a care … dancing was life to me.
I danced ALL THE TIME… from room to room, indoors and out from age two on… one time in the local pizza parlor, which embarrassed my dad….but my spirit lived outside my body then. It was so big that my little body couldn’t contain it like it does now. I was completely open and free. Somewhere along the way, I agreed to be contained. Why did I agree? I should have not agreed to stay small and unseen and live only in the confines of this body. Although, in fact, I was always seen, given attention to and asked things of… and at times it made me uncomfortable (angry now, things change as you get older and less tolerable) and wishing for my own private oasis, somewhere on the prairie, maybe. I was happy to be alone in my own little world, I could spend hours there, getting deeply lost in it… so content.
Mmmm, writing this now makes me realize that the same holds true today! Have I contained myself? Well, that could be true being that I am highly empathic and feel what others are feeling more than I’d like to… but that’s to be saved for another post or two... or ten, because it’s a big topic and another part of my life that highly defines who I am, as a person.
Weren’t we talking about vodka? Yes, to indulge in a drink makes sleeping difficult for someone with Lyme disease. My body is hot and fighting, not light and at ease like after I’ve been diligent with my healthy routine and taken a detoxing bath. It struggles, twitches and aches and I get angry at the fact I can’t do normal things like indulging without feeling the consequences. It’s like having a guard at the door at all times that doesn’t even let you sneak out on occasion. “Psst, just this once, please, I’ll be right back? Nobody will know I’m gone.” … but they do, those little spirochetes that have taken up residence, will know and they will retaliate.
Now, if I’m not flaring, been doing all my protocols and eating right, I can enter a lighter state for a few moments and become the person my spirit was meant to be, not this heavy, hurting body but an elevated spirit of the Divine who is eternally free and happy.
I miss that girl, the one of my youth, who was in touch with her inner magic and shared it everywhere she went. I know I’m still that girl, the one who brings light but some days she’s hard to find, some days she stays quiet. This body has taken a lot… a lot of pain, a lot of reactions, a lot of emotions held, a lot of regret… just a lot and it’s tired.
But somehow… I always seem to find a glimmer of hope, a spark to restart, a knowing that there’s more ahead of me, a projection of a less painful life, one where my body allows me to be whom my spirit is, my spirit who is large, brightly glowing and waiting to step through. She is there, she is me, she is hopeful and she will be.
“Dance is the hidden language of the soul.”
Martha Graham
Leslie is a 15 year Lyme Disease Survivor or “Lyme Warrior”, as people with chronic Lyme are lovingly referred to.
She lives in NW Montana with her husband, Core Lodge mascots, “The Sun Goddess”, ”Gimpy, The Deer” and many other beloved woodland creatures.
Lyme Spirochete info: www.lymedisease.org
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