I have had flu at least 5 times this year and that is so unlike me. I have always been blessed with excellent health, this is so odd. The last time I had really had bad flu, my Dr didn't seem too concerned about the flu, but proceeded to ask me 'why are you so run down?'. I explained why I was living in Cape Town for a while, to heal my heart after an extremely abusive marriage.
The doctor sent me off with lots of meds for coughs colds etc but she also encouraged me to see a ppsychiatrist PTS, which was debilitating to say the least. The psychologist was good but I didn't feel that it was helping me move on and so I stopped after about 12 sessions.
I know with out anyone telling me, that my ex has caused irreparable damage to my soul. I know that God loves me and I know that God cares about my future, but there are consequences to bad choices.
The doctor that I went to see today, not my usual one, because my doctor was fully booked. But while listening to my chest, asking me a whole bunch of questions, he then said "What it bothering you so much that your immune system is shot!" Oh boy.... here we go again!
I am supposed to be leaving tomorrow to go up to Johannesburg to attend my grandson's 1st Birthday and Christening, and the doctor said NO, ABSOLUTELY NO. He was a really kind man and his advice was, STOP ABUSING YOURSELF NOW THAT THERE IS NO ONE ELSE TO ! He diagnosed Bronchial Pneumonia and it is really really bad. He then said he wanted me to go into hospital and will still admit me, if I don't show signs in the next 3 - 4 days of getting better.
I feel absolutely awful and I am sharing this here, for other women who have escaped an abusive relationship, it is going to take time... and I think that one should do everything one can, to pamper and love oneself. Something victims are not good at!
I am going off to bed so I won't be around for a while.
Take special care and thank you for your prayers and encouragement'
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2 comments:
Dear Caryl,
I am so sorry to hear that you have pneumonia - please look after yourself and pamper both your self and your soul. I hear you and deeply understand and am moved when you say that your ex has caused irreparable damage to your soul.
Can I offer the following? I understand that your hurt and damage is actually great and real - all the psychologists cannot lessen it by asking you to wrap yourself around dealing with "your contribution" - "co-dependency, rage, poor self esteem" and so on - and frankly, from my own experience it is not the way. Psychologists tend to load up the willing horse with a superhuman load that no "undamaged" person could even handle!!!!
By contrast, I see you as a woman with excellent self esteem - you could not have survived all that abuse without it. You are a person filled with love - you would not have been able to stay with your ex for so long had you not had greater than normal love and compassion already - and I read of your great love for your daughters and grandchildren in this blog. Co-dependency has become a catch-all label for many things that it was never meant to describe - and it has been used as a label for those who express love and concern, as if these were bad, when they are what make us truly human. I have been there with therapy labels!!!
Please Caryl, my instinct about your immune system breakdown that has resulted in this pneumonia is that you are trying to "cure" yourself of all the actually healthy and basically correctly adjusted manifestations of your brave psyche that had carried you through all your tough times.
The best therapy is that which recognises that we all crave love all of our lives, we all deserve love every second of our lives and the very life force that carries us is love. You have love in abundance, you invite love in abundance by sharing yourself with the world, and you receive love from even strangers who see the warmth and vulnerability that you are brave in sharing. It has been your lovingness that has even attracted the damaged souls to you - your ex for example. (Though as you know - you cannot and should not live with a partner who has a severely damaged soul - it is like being with a wounded tiger - you can feel compassion for it, but you can only remove yourself from its reach!!).
Your soul has been seriously damaged in the earthly sense, but it is also a pure and whole soul in the eternal sense - and that includes the present too - if you can accept this paradox.
Caryl, do rest and heal your body - could it be that the illness is your body's wise protest against this continued psychological pushing and punishing of yourself. I feel you don't need to, and shouldn't, continue to "work on yourself" in the conventional therapeutic sense - it is another well-meaning but sub-consciously damaging way of keeping you a victim. I have been there - starting out essentially healthy with minor issues and ending up damaged by my "therapy". Therapists keep women at it because the women are willing, tend to accept criticism, and the work the "patient" does serves to vindicate the therapist's choice of vocation.
Caryl - Bathe in love and get well soon.
Caryl, I am so moved and am in tears at what Fiona has said here. She has beautifully managed to say so much that I simply couldnt as your friend. Fiona, everything you have written about Caryl is true..and more. She is a beautiful human being in every way, who deserves love but cannot find it in herself to fully accept it from herself or from others. Its hurtfull all the way around. What you say about therapists and all the 'labels' which they they tag a person with is true, and I believe with all my heart, that this is especially the case with that of co-dependancy.
Caryl, my precious friend, I love you dearly. Get better soon.
And Fiona, what an angel you are. A very special person yourself.
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