Choosing to Live

October 2001, I was admitted to a psychiatric ward, ‘locked down’, as the unit would call it, for attempting to take my own life. I couldn’t understand why a hospital would take away my freedom by putting me in a room that had no shower curtain (I heard from someone at the hospital that nothing could be in the room where one could hang themselves. I arrived wearing a pair of overalls, the ones that came over the shoulder, clasped in front of the bibs. The hospital made me give those up too because they believed one could hang themselves on those as well.) All I wanted to do was be left alone, go to sleep and never wake up. I felt alone, ashamed to tell my immediate family where I was, (what family? I walked out on them three years earlier, leaving a husband that I had been married to for over 22 years and leaving our four children with him). The despair I felt was so overwhelming and I was so disgusted with myself for not even being able to hold it together. I had continual thoughts of being a bad mother, a bad wife, not being good enough to provide for them or even myself.

Upon release a week later after intense therapy, I trusted all the medications I was taking would somehow keep me together. I was told that the Fibromyalgia and Chronic Fatigue I had been living with 20 years prior was probably the source of my despair. I felt like a girl stuck in her drama story. Who would want to be around someone who only spoke about her sickness? I felt as if any moment a time bomb was about to go off inside of me. I wanted everything to be different, anything but feeling sick and wanting to die all the time. I was so sick and tired of being sick and tired!

Nightly, I began to pray that I could make a difference in this world. It became my every thought; how can I make a difference in this world? How can I make a difference to others? Most importantly, how can I make a difference to myself? I began to wonder what my life could look like if I thought about living instead of dying and what changes I could make.

In October 2003, I got brave and decided to start dating again. I met a wonderful man that made me laugh more tha
I had ever laughed in my life. I felt safe, loved, and more importantly alive when I was with him.

In February 2005, my sweetheart heard an ad on the radio for a free seminar on getting help living with Fibromyalgia. We attended the seminar. As we listened to other people’s testimonials, I thought if other people can feel better, then I can too and it would be worth every dollar we spent to get my health back again. I started my new health program; seeing the physician three times a week, getting a weekly massage, drinking more water tha
I ever had in my life, learning what good food was and when to eat, sleeping more regularly, adding exercise, doing all the things I took for granted to preserve my health. I could finally see the slight edge working in my own life by desiring to live and wanting to make a difference.

Within three months, I was off all the medications I had been using over time. Shortly thereafter, I began to seek out personal development groups to learn all I could learn for myself. I began dreaming again about all the things I wanted to do. I went to support groups and even started my own support group. I decided I wanted to give back to others which led me in the direction to go to school and become a Licensed Massage Therapist. I asked the doctor where he got his training as I wanted to be schooled by the men who taught him. I went to his mentors and received several certifications and became a Natural Healer and Practitioner. I opened my own practice three years ago helping others feel better as well as counseling those who had given up hope of living. I helped others discover where they could make a difference and what their life purpose was.

I committed to myself to take one day at a time, one step at a time focusing my every thought on living, choosing wellness. Here are a few simple corrections I made when I started my healing journey:

#1.Drink tons of water! I am not joking but the doctor suggested I drink 6 quarts of water a day! No soda, no coffee, no energy drinks, no alcohol, only water. My goal was drink 3 quarts by 3pm, 3 quarts after 3pm. It was explained to me that I was so severely dehydrated that my body needed water as the kidneys reabsorb 178 liters of fluid a day. The best thing I could do for my kidneys was support them by drinking my 6 quarts daily. He told me if I wanted to get my health back, this was the key!

#2.Eat breakfast! Eating breakfast gets the bowels moving because we all know that if your bowels aren’t moving, ‘you ain’t a happy camper’ for the rest of the day. My doctor highly recommended I eat some protein (hand full of nuts, cottage cheese, string cheese, yogurt, boiled egg, etc) every 2 hours!!! This seemed hard for me in the beginning since I was a sugar addict. I learned that my desire for sugar was the major reaso
I was so ill. My doctor literally grabbed my chin one day and had me look square in his eyes and said: ‘Deb, do you want to know why you are so fat? It’s because of all the sugar you eat, not all the fat you keep avoiding!” That got my attention.

#3.Rest, rest, rest. Anyone that knew me would say I was like a chicken with my head cut off, going in a million directions. The doctor suggested I teach myself to rest as often as my body needed and take plenty of breaks during the day. This helped me focus on what my body was feeling. Initially I slept 12 hours or more, but eventually I was able to get a restful sleep in about 8-9 hours at night. He told me resting was where the body did its repair work.

Even though I suffered 30 years with Fibromyalgia and Chronic Fatigue, being told by doctors that it was something I would have to learn to live with and being fed from a resource of 48 different medications, I chose to leave that all in the past putting an end to my ‘death sentence’.

The above suggestions changed my life and started me in a healthy direction that truly works. Today, at the age of 54, I am simply a gal who loves living with a purpose. It has been six years since I have been de-toxed off all those medications. I have learned that I survived so I could teach others how to live with their pain. I learned I am not ‘my disease’ and I no longer label myself a ‘Fibromyalgic’.

Among the many things I have learned on so many levels, I know that by going to the depths of my own hell, feeling like I was going insane in my own mental prison in the psychiatric ward, I discovered my soul really wanted to live. I absolutely didn’t know how I was going to do it, but all I knew was I WANT TO LIVE.

Thank you for giving me the opportunity to share the slight changes I made in my life that changed the course of my journey. In the beginning, I had to quit listening to everybody else telling me I couldn’t do this and that it was stupid to even think I could beat the illness. I only focused on what I could do daily, and then start all over again the next day. I hope you found at least one thing that will make a difference in your life that inspires you to make a change in the direction that works for you and brings you closer to all your dreams, your visions, and aspirations you truly want.