Healing the Soul, Healing the Body [Seeking Life Along The Way: Addendum]

When I got involved with The Way in the fall of 1977 at the age of 18, I was in good physical health. But four years later, for the first time in my life, I developed asthma and other symptoms of an over-responsive immune system. My symptoms worsened during subsequent years and continued for the next two decades. They did not significantly improve until I began stepping outside Way doctrine and tapping into a more authentic path for my life.

The following was written a couple years before I wrote my Way story. I later decided to add it to my Way story as an addendum. I added it because my health story and Way story are intricately intertwined. Autoimmune illnesses can be triggered by, among other things, stress and trauma and suppression of emotions. All of which one experiences on a continuum in a high-demand group or relationship and with indoctrination of a toxic faith.

I have no doubt that Way doctrine had a detrimental effect on my physical health, which includes my emotional and psychological well being. At the same time, Way doctrine kept me seeking wholeness because of God's promise of "perfect health."

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In the summer of 2005 my mental health therapist at the time asked if I would write my health story to be included in a book. She asked a few of her clients this same request. She had specific topics she wanted covered. Thus the content of the narrative posted below. I have made a few revisions since it was originally penned.

~*~

Healing the Soul, Healing the Body

At 46 years old I sat across from my counselor. She looked into my eyes and stated, "Carol, I want you to start thinking like a well person."

The statement stunned me. I felt nebulously lost within it having no concept of what her words meant. Over the next few days I rolled the statement over and over in my head and heart. The ensuing story is part of the journey endeavoring to discover what it means to think like a well person.

I choose the 39th year of my life as the threshold for the following meandering, a snippet of my journey.
It was in that year that I began to submerge myself in ink and page, writing my way toward wellness. Journaling changed my course from death to life, from despair to hope.

At 39 years old I was married with two children, ages 8 and 10. For the last seventeen years I had suffered with severe asthma; numerous bouts of pneumonia; multiple sinus surgeries (1984, '85, '86, '96); environmental, chemical, food, and inhalant allergies; hives, welts, and various skin disorders; systemic candida; depression; anxiety; mood swings; chronic fatigue; body aches; and a myriad of other symptoms that go with an over-responsive and depleted immune system. I had been pumped with intravenous drugs, swallowed or inhaled a host of pharmaceuticals (including 1000's of doses of steroids), been pricked with needles 100's of times for various reasons, and received a myriad of allergy antigens. Alongside conventional treatments, I had utilized alternative therapies including homeopathy, oral and intravenous vitamin/mineral supplementation, strict dietary protocols, acupuncture, herbs, bodywork, prayer, and some psychological counseling.

Exhaustion and depression were constant companions.
I was caught in a sticky, mucous-coated, stagnant, thickened, stringy web that felt like it morphed in every tissue and cell beneath my skin.
I felt trapped in my own body.
I craved to breathe freely.
I thirsted for fluid energy and to move without pain.
I dreamed of running like a deer, graceful and free through the woods.
I hungered for freedom.

I often felt like a complete failure as a believer, as a mother, as a person. Shame coursed through my veins. My suicide plan was foolproof, but I couldn't leave my children with the legacy that their mother had committed suicide. My children were my saving grace, my reason to keep drawing one more breath, to keep trying.

Life was not always dreary. Alternative treatments had become my mainstay for recovery, and I had stretches of improvement and hope. But the improvement came in incremental bits.

Yet, now my hope was depleted; it was time to quit hoping.
I had clung to the belief that God's will for me was complete health.
It was time to give up the dream that I could actually get well.
Death seemed the only alternative for release.

At that point I took my pen to paper and began to write.

Emotions crystallized into words upon the page detailing the self-loathing, the asthma attacks, the pain that racked my body, the exhaustion, the anger, the murky darkness of it all. I felt such deep, deep shame and self-hatred. Day after day I filled the pages; I held nothing back. I poured it all onto paper, including dreams and hopes.

I wrote because I had to.
I did not know what else to do.

I never imagined that by putting pen to parchment my circumstances would begin to change, but they did in a most powerful way.

~*~

Within a few months of starting to journal I was hospitalized yet again (October, 1998) and connected with a doctor who discovered I was suffering with mercury toxicity, a typical cause for immune dysfunction. In January, 1999, I was again hospitalized and connected with a different doctor who confirmed the mercury toxicity. [Probably a main contributor to the mercury toxicity was my amalgam fillings (some decades old at the time) which I have since had replaced with composites made of ingredients for which I was compatibility-tested.] That same month I began an intense yearlong detox regimen which included oral chelation therapy, intravenous and oral vitamin and mineral therapy, hydro-colon therapy, low heat saunas, and coffee enemas.

I continued to journal and began to re-educate myself on healing.
I began to have hope again.
Unknown to me at that time, I suffered my last severe episode of asthma attacks in January, 1999.

After six months from my last round of asthma attacks, I was able to start addressing more definitively other symptoms: fatigue, mood swings, hives, and pain. It was like my body continually pushed symptoms to the surface that were desperately crying to be released. Yet I was hopeful that these symptoms too could be ameliorated; the asthma was already curbed, and I had new treatments to try.

Maybe my body can get well if I can learn better how to listen to what it is trying to communicate to me. Maybe I can allow it to heal itself. Maybe, maybe, just maybe....

The next regimen on my agenda was a treatment known as Enzyme Potentiated Desensitization (EPD), a complex allergy treatment that approached the reprogramming of miscoded T-helper cells. Every eight weeks, for 1-1/2 years, I received injections containing over 200 antigens mixed with an enzyme to penetrate the miscoded cells. After each round of injections I went into quarantine for five days to limit my exposure to allergens and ate only venison, tapioca flour with water, and sweet potatoes due to multiple food sensitivities and allergies.

My health improved with EPD. A sore spot in my left lung that had been present since my last bout with pneumonia cleared. Some skin conditions improved. My sense of smell was restored. Allergic reactions and energy improved. Then the FDA abruptly stopped the use of EPD in the United States. My sense of smell was stolen again, and some allergy troubles resurfaced. But I remained hopeful that other doors would open for me.

~*~

In the spring of 2000, I was diagnosed with a herniated disc confirmed with an MRI. It had not responded to steroid injections, muscle relaxers, or physical therapy. A friend loaned me the book, Healing Back Pain, by Dr. John Sarno. The book was about how some people suppress emotional pain which then manifests as physical pain. I matched the profile. 

The book prompted me to dig deeper for a more specific program to help guide me in uncovering emotional causes. That search led me to a website, MindBodyMedicine.com and Dr. David Schechter's guided journaling, reading, and education program. With the support of my then-medical doctor, I personally chose to approach the program completely psychological; I gave up my brace and physical therapy. For me that worked. Within six weeks of the program, the back spasms were 80% better. After five months they were completely gone.

Due to the improvements of what I had learned via Sarno's work, I was prompted to delve more deeply into the relationship between my emotions and my physical illnesses.

How many of my illnesses and symptoms could be due to suppressed emotions? Am I honest enough to be able to open up and see what really lurks in my soul?

In the fall of 2000, I began regular psychological counseling to see how much of this connection could be a cause for some of my ailments. Over the subsequent four years I developed a support system which consisted of journaling, bibliotherapy, and relationships with a handful of people and professionals that I could call upon. I grew in my ability to open up, to peek within and see the ugliness and the beauty. I saw more ugliness than beauty. But I began to understand that even what I perceived as "ugly" was okay; I didn't have to fear it.

During these four years my symptoms became less intense and then plateaued. I lived managing mood swings; hives and sneezing attacks a few times a week; and a hormone dysfunction that would manifests in severe aches, depression, and cognitive impairment about five days per month. I continued my search for relief through conventional means (including medications for the depression), bodywork, nutrition, homeopathy, and energy medicine. I continued with counseling and journaling. I began to think that this was as well as I could get.

In latter 2004 I was introduced to a nutritional product that had more life-changing effects. Within nine months of consuming this product my hives completely disappeared. The mood swings and debilitating hormone dysfunction were probably 85% better. I was able to get off my daily psychiatric medications. My energy was more stable. I went from feeling like I was hit by an 18-wheeler four to five days a month to being hit by a bicycle a few days a month. I was beginning to taste freedom.

It was during this time that my counselor stated those unforgettable words , "Carol I want you to start thinking like a well person."

My adult life had revolved around sickness - a science of schedules and charts and foods and pills and needles and tests and treatments. This new experience of wellness was scary. Oddly I found myself wanting to break down, but couldn't.

I thought I would run free once liberated from this tyranny of entrapment. Yet, I was in new territory, unfamiliar, uncomfortable. What was I to do with myself now? It took me six to eight months to become comfortable with being "well."

In the fall of 2005 I was well enough to make some major religious changes. After twenty-eight years of loyalty I chose to leave an authoritarian religious organization. In hindsight I have no doubt that certain doctrines and practices that I had embraced from this organization were major contributors to the chronic illnesses with which I had been ensnared. Without the wellness I had been granted by 2005 I don't know if I could have made the break from that organization. It took much resolve and energy that I didn't have prior to 2004.

Over time after divorcing the organization I was able to tap into my heart again, and I began to understand with greater clarity underlying emotional causes that contributed to the previous decades of illness.

What are my maintenance practices? Decent nutrition, medications as needed, rest. Movement, nature, play. Mindfulness, reading, writing. Music, movies, laughter. And authentic relationships with myself, my environment, and loved ones. When I experience physiological symptoms or tumultuous emotions I endeavor to seek self-awareness and then to listen and follow the paths that offer relief.

What does it mean to think like a well person? It means I recognize that I am significant, worthy of love, and fully human. I am a vital member of the human family. I am not an appliance that requires fixing; rather, I am a yearning individual with an innate need for love, acknowledgment, and to know my value.

~*~
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Updates:

• In 2008, at age 49, I had full, left hip replacement surgery due to degeneration brought on by years of high doses of steroids that I had consumed to keep me breathing. In 2010 the manufacturer of my implant announced a voluntary recall because some of the implants were defective. Through 2012 I had yearly check-ups with my orthopedic surgeon on the implant, and it appeared all was okay. That status changed in 2016.

• In December, 2009, I contracted MRSA, which erupted four different times within five months.

• In late September, 2010, I made the difficult decision to file an official complaint against my then-licensed, mental-health, cult-recovery therapist. It was one of the hardest decisions of my life. I was his client for two years, 2008 thru 2010. In early fall, 2010, I filed the complaint. In late summer, 2011, the therapist tried to smear my character in twelve different online defamatory online posts on Facebook [where I was meat in a feeding frenzy] and on his website. In November, 2012, I was a witness for the state at the therapist's licensing board hearing. In January, 2014, his license was revoked. I was not the only client whom he harmed. To read an overview of that experience click here.

• In May, 2011, I developed debilitating symptoms simultaneously in all my limbs and extremities while taking a medication (oral terbinafine; ie: Lamisil) for six weeks for toenail fungus. In 2013, it was properly diagnosed as polyradiculitis, a rare type of peripheral neuropathy typically associated with chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyneuropathy (CIDP) and Guillain-Barre syndrome (GBS). I do not have CIDP or GBS but have the same symptoms. Polyradiculitis means that multiple nerve roots are swollen at the spinal cord. For me, that includes roots at my lumbar and cervical neck regions. Symptoms have spread to all my limbs and extremities, my back, my neck, and my jaws. I receive steroid lumber epidurals every twelve weeks and steroid cervical neck shots every six. To read some snippets regarding my continuing struggle with polyradiculitis, click here.

• In June, 2016, we discovered that my recalled hip implant from 2008 was indeed defective; it had slowly been leaching cobalt and chromium into my body. Among other things, heavy metals can be a factor in and cause of nerve damage. On August 30, 2016, I had revision lateral hip replacement surgery replacing the 2008 defective implant. It typically takes one to two years after removal of a leaching implant for metal levels to come down. 

• May 12, 2021:  A lot has happened since 2016. To read a snippet overview and my current path, click here.

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(Last revised May, 2021)


Links:
Seeking Life Along The Way: Part 1
Seeking Life Along The Way: Part 2
Seeking Life Along The Way: Part 3
Seeking Life Along The Way: Addendum

Augusts

I feel I need to write. Will I click "publish post?" I won't know until the end of the ramble.

The month of August.

My mother's birthday is this month. She was born August 4, 1925, and died January 31, 2009.

I don't recall the year of my father's birth, but his birthday is August 18. He died in February, 1996, on a Friday. I think it was in February. I know it was a Friday; I was to attend the first session of The Way's then new foundational class that night. The session was postponed due to a snow storm. My father was around 73(?) when he died. So he must have been born around 1923. He lived as a quadriplegic the last 13 years of his life.

My son's birthday is coming up on August 14. He will be 21 this year.

What was I doing at 21 years old? That would have been August, 1980, the beginning of my interim year of the 10th Way Corps. That August, I worked Children's Camp for Corps Week at The Way College in Indiana. I then went to the Rock of Ages, the 5-day then annual festival of The Way where we welcomed home the Word Over the World (WOW) Ambassadors from the previous year and celebrated the commissioning of the new WOW Ambassadors for the current year; years running from August to August.

I went out WOW that year of 1980. It was my second time going WOW and was my interim year Way Corps assignment. I was a WOW team coordinator and was sent to Torrington, Connecticut. I left "the WOW field" in AWOL fashion in October that same year. The shame of that action haunted me for decades, and still haunts me at times. I broke my vow, a most heinous action, especially for Way Corps.

August, 1981, I found myself in a Way Home in Cleveland, Ohio, starting The Way Corps all over again with my second apprenticeship year. I developed asthma at that time, around September, 1981. My last bout with severe asthma attacks was January, 1999. I still use an inhaler on a somewhat regular basis, but have no severe attacks anymore. I hope I never do again.

August, 2009, is when "Ria" came to our home and ended up staying for seven weeks. I've written very little about that experience. It was a roller coaster ride, and an odd one, culminating in October, 2009, and me leaving my own home shaken with fear due to her final outburst. Previous to that outburst, I had told her she could stay with us awhile. That changed when she broke the dish and had yet another melt down, another one directed at me. At the time, I wondered if she suffered from DID. I had wanted to help; I failed I guess.

As much as I don't want to bring up the not-too-distant past experience with my ex-therapist, the culmination of that experience, happened in August, 2010. As silly as it may sound, not a day goes by as of yet that I don't think about that and still wonder how in god's name it ended up like it did. It's still difficult for me to believe and accept, and I get embarrassed at the impact it has had on me. I wish that weren't the case; I wish I had a switch to turn it off. Eventually it will drift into the memory vault of past "stuff." My typical grief and integration time period after something touches me deeply is two years. August 2 and 3, 2012, will mark two years.

2012, the year 'everyone' is waiting for with the grand date being 12/21/12. My husband's birthday is 12/22. I imagine we will celebrate it like any other birthday.

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Addendum: Dad died February 16, 1996.
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Cocoon Shelter

The pen draws me in
Enticing me to write
Letters appear
Words form
Images sketched
The pen draws me out
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Yerba and I continued putting one foot in front of the other. The woods were dark and dense, the terrain uneven and becoming more and more rocky. I like to hike over rocks. But I was tired. The night was dark. Going was slow.

I had to be extra diligent to keep my head lamp focused to see the ground in front of us, to pick up my feet and not allow them to drag from fatigue, to place my trekking poles in the right places so as to maintain balance. Yerba's four legs and agile body skillfully ambled the rocky path. Then she'd lay down on the flat of the path and wait for me.

What a great trail dog.

We need to keep walking. The end can't be that much further, can it? There really isn't any open spaces of ground free from trees and rocks and scrubbage on which to sleep now.

"Scrubbage." I like that word, a word my son made up in his younger days. It should make it into the dictionary, "scrubbage." Along with the acronym "AFGO." My friend, Robin, made up AFGO - "another fucking growth opportunity."

It's good our minds don't permanently record everything us humans think. Imagine all the thoughts that are going on at this moment. Oh my; it gets very noisy.

I heard someone hollering. "Carol Welch!" Then a pause. Then again. "Carol! Carol Welch!"

It was my son, Josh.

"Hey! I'm here!" I bellowed back, glad to know that Yerba and I really had made progress to our destination.

In another 30 seconds we saw each others' faces, our foreheads adorned with miniature spot lights.

"Gosh," Josh's visage went from fear to relief and he exhaled a huge sigh. "I was so worried that something happened to ya'll. I mean, I was scared that you might be lying somewhere injured...or dead. I knew you must be out of water. I was so worried."

"Nah, we're fine." I responded as Josh handed me a water bottle. I pulled out Yerba's drinking dish and she lapped up the clear beverage. "It's just taking a lot longer than we thought, obviously. The trail is rough through here. How is it beyond here?"

The water was a pleasant relief.

"It's rocky, then smooths out." Josh replied. "There's a shelter 1/2 mile or so before 19E. I asked the hikers there if they had seen you. They know I'm up here looking for you."

He figured he'd hiked in around 2 miles maybe from where the car was parked, but it was hard to tell. Hiking goes much slower in the dark, over rocks, amidst shadows. Regardless, we had a trek ahead of us.

"Yerba's really tired."

"I bet," Josh replied. "My respect for her has sky-rocketed after today. She is a real trooper."

The three of us rested and chatted a few more minutes, then started again.

Thank God Josh was there. In less than 1/4-mile we came to a rock scramble where Josh had to carry Yerba. She simply couldn't do the scramble. Had it been daytime, Yerba and I could have probably figured out a way for her to get around it. But in the dark fatigue...well, I just wouldn't have attempted it. And there was no way I could carry her over the scramble. Josh's 19-year old sculpted physique almost effortlessly performed the task.

After an hour or so that seemed like forever, we saw some lights. A round bubble glowed with an eerie haze. I put Yerba on leash.

Yerba began a low growl as we approached. A voice from the tent whispered, "Holy shit. What's that?"

I chuckled, "It's o.k. It's my dog and we're people."

I knew that "holy shit" feeling as you're parked beside the trail and you hear noises in the night and you know there ain't nothing you can do about whatever it is beyond your thin tent walls providing a false sense of security from the elements.

I hear a sigh of relief, "Thank God." Then a chuckle from inside the glow. Yerba, continued with her low growl and a few barks as we passed the alien-looking structure, I verbally assured her it was o.k.

We hiked another few hundred yards and there were a couple more tents and a few people milling about.

"Hey! You found your mom!" The voices were cheerful.

"Yeah. I was worried there for a bit," Josh replied.

Yerba had stopped her growling and was her friendly self.

That is until she began growling and barking non-stop. I turned about to see what the excitement was. A shelter.

Shelters on the AT are wooden structures. Most have an elevated floor, three sides, and roof. Some have an upstairs. All have places to hang your backpacks off the floor and ground, helps keeps varmints out of the packs.

I don't sleep in shelters. I like my tent. In fact, I love my tent; it's my home on the trail. But shelters are nice if it's raining. And there is usually always a water source not too far from a shelter.

I peered around focusing my head lamp and eyes. I laughed. About five backpacks were hanging in mid-air in the shelter. I'd bark too, if I were a dog.

The scene reminded me of the movie Cocoon.

Ghostly backpacks, suspended in time and space in the dark within three walls.

****
Home Among The Balds (part 1 of 3)
The Woods Have Eyes (part 2 of 3)
Cocoon Shelter (part 3 of 3)
****

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