hsphaven

I don’t even know where to begin with this post. It feels like I’m strapped into a theme park ride being tossed around and around so much that everything’s a blur. I lose all this time, I disappear on friends, and even though I know a lot has happened I struggle to remember it all, so I will have to look over the emails I’ve been writing.

I am approaching my period, which always makes me particularly unwell. I started getting headaches again, after a few weeks where they weren’t so bad. I’ve also been feeling breathless, light headed, and nauseous. My mood and identity have been swinging all over the place. I’ve felt a more masculine energy moving through me, leading me to dress differently and change my pronouns for a bit. Here is one of the photos I took during that time.

I also feel a very young child in me who longs for somebody to hold and take care of her. This, as I’ve mentioned in other posts, led me to a site called Fet Life where I started talking with a man who identifies as a “daddy”. We were going to meet again the other week, but I was sleep deprived, got too stressed and cancelled. I suggested meeting last Sunday, but then my identity switched again. I hoped he didn’t take me up on my offer as he would be expecting a Babygirl, not a man! Thankfully he didn’t reply. But then I switched again and really wanted to have a daddy. I haven’t heard from him for a bit so I don’t really know what’s going on. I’m not sure this is a great avenue to get the nurture this part of me craves as it is so sexualised. I was talking about this with my new psychologist today.

“online stuff is really worring , im worried about your safety and dark energy there,” she said.

She was concerned it was paedophilic.

“Yes that is true,” I typed back. “I worry it’s like legalised paedofilia, because the body is an adult so they can get away with it but the spirit/mind/part/whatever you want to call it is actually a child”

My psychologist suggested paid services that are trauma informed instead, such as a professional tantra worker.

I had another appointment with my physio this week. We talked about sleep for a bit, which helped ease me into the session. He then did some more TMJ work, gently massaging around my jaw, head and neck. It was very nice. He then offered to massage my feet to give me some therapeutic touch. I sat on the massage table and he pulled up one leg of my baggy corduroy pants made of rainbow patches. I then pulled it back down. I have a lot of body image issues and was self-conscious of my hairy legs. When I started uni a bit over a decade ago there was a man who was basically sexually harassing me. He’d say things that would really undermine my self-esteem (which was already pretty shit). One of those things was that I’d be more beautiful if I shaved, which he said one time when we were in his car together one evening and he was touching my legs. I never felt self-conscious about my legs until that point. He was actually the catalyst for me entering therapy. I will do what the fuck I like with my body, but his comment did sort of get into me like an infection that’s hard to shake.

“There is a lot of pressure from society on females to change their bodies, shave etc,” I scribbled to my physio in my note book as I still don’t talk. “I don’t follow all that. But I guess I still care what you think of me.”

My physio told me he’d massaged women who don’t shave before. He said I didn’t have to get my feet massaged and we only had a few minutes left anyway. I decided I’d let him massage them. He gave me some cards to hold up if I wanted the pressure less or more. I still felt quite uncomfortable throughout the massage. Our session came to an end and my mood plummeted.

“I have nothing to live for,” I wrote to him.

I can’t remember what he said to that. I then felt rushed out of the clinic before I was ready to go.

“Put your socks on,” he told me afterwards, and left the room. He came back and suggested meeting again in two or three weeks.

I got up and stumbled a bit.

“You’re just faking being light headed to try to get him to spend more time with you!” a scathing voice in me said. I then grabbed my belongings and hurried out with my boots in my hands, not making another appointment. I felt his next patient staring at me as I left.

Thank goodness I drive now and didn’t have to catch public transport home afterwards. I shut myself in my car.

“Yes book me in,” I texted my physio. “I’m so sorry I didn’t mean to be so rude”

I opened the storage box and found some diazepam, but my drink bottle was empty. I debated whether or not to go back into the clinic to get it filled up. But I wasn’t sure where the bathroom was and there wasn’t anyone at reception when I left. I felt like walking in front of the busy traffic. I kicked my legs up on the dashboard and just played songs on my phone to draw all the emotion out of me like a splinter. I screamed and felt so alone. I had “The Exorcist” by Daniel Cavanagh on repeat. I didn’t know if my physio was the exorcist who was helping me, or the demon itself who was making me worse. I worried maybe he would be just another professional to hurt me. I knew where this was headed. I decided I was better off alone.

I sent the song to Peter, my psychotherapist who I go for walks with.

“There’s not many people left I trust,” I texted him.

“Everyone disappoints. Everyone hurts. Everyone turns on me. I thought [insert friend’s name] was safe. I thought she knew me better than anyone but she too has turned on me. This is partly why I don’t speak to anyone anymore.”

I sent him another song, “The Fountain (from Through Shaded Woods)” by Lunatic Soul. I no longer wait for you to come, my phone blasted. 

I sent Daniel Cavanagh’s “The Exorcist” to a friend, who described it as “intense”.

My physio replied to my text about an hour later.

“Not at all Zoe, we all have good days and bad days,” he said. “I’ll get an appointment booked and let you know what time”

I thanked him for his forgiveness, even though I knew whatever this was it was not ordinary. I told him a lot was coming up, and included the song in the text.

“My feet hurt,” I wrote. “Everything hurts”

“Remember what I said about an “echo” in your nervous system after treatment?” he said. “It’s how we’re going to get your nerves to slowly become less sensitive, like how you skin hurts getting in a bath but shortly after the Easter just feels lovely and warm.”

I didn’t reply. I finally left. I picked up some groceries but then ran into my mum at the shops. I didn’t want to see her at all. She asked if she could drop something off later that day. I agreed, just wanting the conversation to end. When I got home I had a bath to try and wash off the massage oil, wash the day off, wash HIM off, and sooth my feet. My mum arrived at the house and I ignored her. My dad came to the bathroom door and said she’d dropped off a chai. He left it by the door. I then knocked it over when I left the bathroom. Everything was pissing me off. I just wanted the world to go away.

“I wish everyone would just leave me alone!!!!!” I vented to Peter.

“Everything and everyone’s so fucking annoying!!!!

People and their fucking dogs which won’t stop barking. My fucking stomach which won’t stop whining.

Just wanna fucking kill myself. Now gonna drag my miserable fucking self off to badminton and play on no sleep.”

“I am sorry you had that experience with your physiotherapist, Zoe,” he wrote back. “This must be so disappointing for you. I hope that you can apply your annoyance to badminton and kick some ass tonight!”

“Lol yeah if I can get my car started,” I wrote. “There’s either something wrong with it or I’ve forgotten how to drive. Now going to try borrow my dad’s car.

I don’t know what the fuck my physio has done to my feet. Didn’t have any problem with them until he touched them.”

“Sometimes you can have what’s called a healing crisis, where things get worse before they get better,” was the text I got from Peter when I was at badminton. “I hope that’s the case for you, as you deserve a break.”

That text calmed me down.

The next day I wrote another essay to my physio.

“Hi, this is what I’ve been researching when I can’t sleep at night. I find these videos really interesting. They both talk about chronic pain. In the first one the guy talks about how he became so sensitive he couldn’t be touched. And in the second one the other guy talks about getting seizures from a massage.

The Bliss and Nightmare of Kundalini Awakening

Kundalini Awakening Symptoms: Bliss and Terror, Tragic and Divine

I’m going through a similar thing spiritually. Had kundalini abruptly awaken a few years ago and it’s certainly not for the faint hearted. I have been feeling it a bit again. This article has helped me a lot.

I see myself in ascensions 2 (awakening of a new personality) and 3 (awakening of spiritual energy). Here is the bit on the awakening of spiritual energy:

‘Spiritual ascension’ can sometimes refer to awakening spiritual energy within the body and energy field. When life force energy (commonly referred to as qi, prana, or kundalini energy) is awakened, major changes can occur on the physical through the spiritual levels. Ancient practices such as tai chi, yoga, meditation, and tantra, help to awaken this energy, but sometimes life force energy awakens spontaneously. This sudden activation is called a Kundalini Awakening, which enters the realms of the soul and total awakening (see the next two types below).

An awakening of spiritual energy can feel mild all the way to extreme. (And when I say extreme, I mean intensely overwhelming and often too much to bear.) Common signs of an awakening of spiritual energy involve feelings of enhanced vitality and energy on the physical level, energy rushes, tingling and electrical feelings throughout the body, changes in sexual libido, sharpened awareness, and feelings of cosmic interconnectedness. Negative symptoms can also arise (for the uninitiated) such as mood swings, mania, physical hypersensitivity, insomnia, seizures, loss of appetite or overeating, extreme and scary altered states of consciousness – just to name a few.’

It’s a wild ride. Massive shifts in personality, energy and emotion. One minute I’m manic, the next I’m depressed and suicidal, and usually I’m both at once. The anger is not just anger but murderous rage. Sadness is not just sadness but drowning in a lake inside of you. The dial is cranked up to the max. I cannot sleep, I cannot handle any noise and cannot stand being around people. I still couldn’t sleep last night. I was buzzing. I didn’t want to take anything to dampen it down because I actually felt good, but then it quickly turned into something quite unpleasant again. By that point I was just over it so I took some benzos, which did nothing. I then took olanzapine, which did nothing either! Finally I decided fuck it and took some codeine. I knew it was a bit of an overkill; my physical pain, while upsetting, isn’t severe pain, but my emotional pain was horrible. My stomach didn’t like the codeine but I did feel better emotionally and finally fell asleep.

So ya, that’s how I’ve been since our last session. In other cultures those experiencing this kind of thing leave society for a while and stay with a shaman who is their guide. They then come back spiritual leaders. In our society people are just left in environments that are not good for them, or put in psych wards and drugged without any understanding of the spiritual aspect.

I started looking at my gut issues from this perspective. I wonder if the kundalini energy is trying rise but is getting blocked there. In some ways blocks can serve to protect us because kundalini dredges up all this primal trauma stored in the root chakra and when it reaches the top chakras it starts to really mess with our perception and that’s when people become psychotic. It’s almost like all the energy is building up around my abdomen; you can literally see it inflated like a balloon. When I got that pain I told you about over the weekend it felt like it had burst. I had just started walking in the park and had to turn around to go home. I could barely even walk and barely made it home. It was a bit scary. The pain seemed to start in my abdomen and then spread downwards. I really don’t know what the fuck is wrong. I think I may have pushed myself too much that day. I tried to do some shopping and felt like I was going to collapse or pass out in the shop. I really cannot function in society.

If you’ve made it this far thanks for reading! I find all this fascinating and exciting but you may not share my perspective. Also yesterday I felt like you just wanted me gone, like hurried out of the clinic? I’m worried about the state I’m leaving sessions in. I was lucky I didn’t walk in front of the traffic or something yesterday. I’m really hoping the pain in my feet is temporary. I think the pressure was still a bit much and I wish I had of communicated better.”

This was his reply:

“Hi Zoe,

Thanks for sending all of that through, it certainly helps me to understand things from your perspective much better.

I’ll have a look at the videos as soon as I get a chance, they sound interesting. My western trained scientific brain does tend to be resistant to things that are based in the spiritual, as it’s not something I’m experienced in or had any evidence of, but I’m totally aware of the benefits of using and understanding this system of belief for those who engage in it.

Given the energetic nature of what you’re experiencing, perhaps some Reiki sessions with Alysia (naturopath) would be even more appropriate than my massage? I think we should continue with the TMJ / headache stuff, and I can still see the value in letting your system adapt and respond to other forms of therapeutic touch, but at the moment your sensitivity might be making the post treatment soreness (and then worry about this soreness) counter productive. Not sure. Reiki offers a good middle ground, because you’re still receiving care, but there isn’t physical touch and it’s just focused on energetic balance and chakra assessment, which sounds like it could be perfect for you.

As for the end of the session, don’t ever feel like I’m rushing you out to get rid of you – why would I bother continuing to care how you are if this was my position? No, it’s just that the hard fact of my work is that it’s based on appointments, and once my hour with you is up I have someone waiting in the waiting room to see me, and I owe them the same care and attention I owe you. You were clearly having some low mood towards the end of the session, and while the human thing to do would have been to sit with you longer I didn’t have that luxury of time. Don’t take this personally.

Let me know regarding Alysia. We may still have the issue of her hours not quite suiting you, but the end of her sessions would be manageable as they’d be similar to the time you saw me yesterday. If you like, I can even send on the email you’ve just shared with me so she understands your headspace prior to the session.

Chat soon.”

I was so happy that he seemed interested in the kundalini videos as it has become my latest intense interest.

“Thanks,” I wrote back. “Let me know your thoughts when you get a chance to watch the video 😊

I’m happy for you to send my email to Alysia. I have done Reiki before but it didn’t seem to do much really except stress me a bit as well, I think because I didn’t really trust them and thought they were messing with me and creating new problems which I was on the lookout for afterwards. But perhaps it’s worth trying it again with somebody else. I have developed many new issues since I last had Reiki like my throat and stomach issues, which may resolve if I can get the energy moving through these chakras. NDIS has changed though and I’m not sure naturopaths can be covered anymore. Your TMJ/headache treatments are nice, I’m happy to continue with them. I’m still happy to try other forms of therapeutic touch with you. But since I am like princess and the fucking pea I think I need less pressure, or no pressure at all…. if that would still even be considered massage? 😆

My mood would always plummet after seeing psychologists. I had one psychologist who let me lie in one of their offices after our sessions until I was ready to leave. It’s almost like you need something like that, a room people can lie in knowing they’re in a safe space. I know that people can have emotional releases to stuff like massage. Do you ever have patients cry, or fall asleep? I’m just glad I can drive to my appointments now, so at least I can just have a rest in the back of the car and don’t have to catch public transport home afterwards.”

I then wrote a second email:

“Are my feet going to get better? Cos I’m freaking out that they won’t.”

“Yes, they will,” he wrote. “Although it may have felt like strong pressure a couple of times, I was barely touching your feet. There’s no feasible way this can cause any damage, it’s just treatment response, same as with your back. It will calm down, don’t worry. Some warm water, maybe some bath salts – bit of self care. Do it as a pre-bed routine to calm your system.”

I stopped stressing so much about my feet, but I did nothing to help myself wind down that night. I am a nyctophile (and told my physio that). I just love being awake at night. I felt so fucking good last night. I just wanted to get higher and higher. I stayed up dancing and learning more about kundalini. I watched Ben Smith’s video, “How To Avoid Spiritual Psychosis” (good advice and something I really suck at, being an all or nothing kinda gal). I watched Leon Schwarzenberg’s video, “My Kundalini Awakening experience”. I really like this guy… I can tell he has a similar personality to me. He talks about the low point he was at before his kundalini awakening. Like him I’ve been getting messages that I’m at a critical point and if something doesn’t change then I might die. Finally I watched Mica Akulliian’s video, “My INTENSE Kundalini Awakening”. Mica talks about what sounds like a seizure (or even a stroke), with seizures sometimes happening when kundalini awakens. I also know all too well the wild mood swings he talks about, and how the stuff we’re feeling goes well beyond ourselves. Like I’m not sitting here feeling sorry for myself. I’m hurting over the state of the planet and the way we treat animals. I want to bawl my eyes out because my mum dropped off some eggs the other day. I am mostly vegan and while I do eat eggs, it is important to me that they come from a farm where the chickens have a good life. And my mum just bought ordinary eggs from the supermarket. And it kills me to benefit off a being that is suffering. So I think I will just give the eggs to somebody who doesn’t care about this.

I finally put myself to bed, but I couldn’t sleep and got these shots of electricity which made my whole body jerk. This is nothing new. It’s been going on for at least 7 years now and started when I was withdrawing from an antidepressant. I was on a ridiculously high dose. The bloody thing was meant to help me sleep but all it’s done is make my sleep even worse. Even 7 years later I still get the shocks sometimes as I’m drifting off, which can make me slap myself in the face. Antidepressants are the worst drug I’ve been given and in my opinion shouldn’t be on the market. They destroy people’s lives. On top of this, I’ve been feeling like I’m going to start convulsing or something. This isn’t ordinary insomnia, it’s really disturbing the kind of stuff that’s happening just when I start to fall asleep: the psychotic-like symptoms as well, feeling like I’m dying, the existential terror. I don’t know what’s going on with me, but the identity shifts makes me think my stress has got so bad that I’m dissociating or something, which the physical issues I’m getting such as the nausea, tingling in my hand, and headaches can be a part of too (there’s a great research paper about that here). The DID community talk about “switching headaches” which happen when we are switching or resisting a switch.

Today I tried to figure out what the fuck is wrong with me. I’ve been wondering if I may have some kind of histamine issue. It seems to cover a lot of my issues: the gastrointestinal stuff, the nausea, the difficulty breathing, the headaches, my throat, feeling lightheaded, fatigue, low blood pressure, painful periods, my strange response to my physio’s massage where my feet have felt itchy and hot. It also sounds a lot like my friend’s autoimmune disease and I wonder if my immune system is attacking the intestinal lining or something. When we’re in the fight, flight etc. state, blood can be directed away from the stomach to organs more vital for survival as well. Whatever it is, it all feels like a slippery slope I’m on. I’m now getting parasites, I am anemic, and have a cascade of issues. But emotionally I am actually feeling better. I’m glad I’m getting some highs rather than just lows, even if it comes at a price. I’m glad I can feel again.