A Spoonful of Something

I began to use illness––real or invented––to avoid things that were uncomfortable or overwhelming.

One morning when I was getting ready to go to school, my mom said she thought I looked ill, and wanted me to stay home. I refused, because I had studied hard for a spelling test, and I felt fine. I knew every word and I wanted to ace it. Spelling was something I did well, and I was proud of it. I went to school that day and had a grand mal seizure in front of my whole 3^rd grade class. A month later I had another one, again in front of my classmates. From that point on, I got scared if I felt the slightest bit off. I was terrified it would happen again and I would find a reason to stay home. My mom indulged me because she was afraid too. Sometimes I used her fear to my advantage so I could stay home when things were hard. 

I started to isolate because the kids were mean about my seizures. They teased me, sometimes brutally. The world I created was quiet. It was lonely. I learned to be sad. I felt frightened to move out of my comfort zone.

Subconsciously I made a connection: when I was sick I got extra love and attention. So I got sick a lot. Most times it was legit. Sometimes I faked it though, when I needed a little more love, a little more grace, a day off from the bullying I was experiencing in school. Yes, I knew the trick of holding the tip of the thermometer to a light bulb. Through trial and error, and getting caught only once, I learned that people with fevers over 105° aren’t lucid or conscious so it would be wise to read the thermometer before showing it to my mother. But no one could prove that I didn’t have a stomachache or a headache.

One morning in 5^th grade my teacher called me out of the classroom and told me that I had to go to the principal’s office. She didn’t say why. My heart began to pound and my palms got sweaty. As I walked down the hallway, I thought, “I don’t know what I did but it must be bad. I never get sent to the principal. I must be in big trouble.” When I got to her office, she brought me to the room that was used for the bad kids and the kids who needed extra help because they weren’t very smart. I wasn’t bad and I was smart. She opened the door and a very tall, thin old man in a business suit greeted me, and bent down to introduce himself. He told me to sit, we were going to have a little talk. We both sat on the tiny chairs the kindergarten kids used. It was so stupid, especially for him. He was so big. He said he was a psychologist. I thought, “Crazy people go to psychologists. I’m not crazy.”

He started talking to me, pulling his chair way too close, his face inches from mine. He was bald, had crooked mossy teeth and really smelly breath. He said that my parents and my teachers were worried about me because I seemed so sad all the time. This was a place where I could talk about my feelings. Terrified and angry, I wondered why my parents didn’t tell me this was going to happen. Why didn’t they warn me? Do they think I’m crazy? The doctor told me that we would meet every Thursday morning going forward so we could get to the bottom of things. Every Thursday, for weeks afterwards, I conveniently felt too sick to go to school. When the grownups finally got the message, the appointments stopped. There was never a discussion about it. Life just went on.

I began to use illness––real or invented––to avoid things that were uncomfortable or overwhelming. I used illness to receive extra love and attention. I wanted people to feel sorry for me. As sorry as I felt for myself. These behaviors continued throughout my life. I had a need to have people worry about me and take care of me, while at the same time, I’d push people away and say “Don’t worry about me! I’m fine.”

When I was in my 50s I saw a therapist who bluntly said to me during a session, “You create the crap in your life so that people will take care of you.” I felt like she’d slapped me across the face and dumped a bucket of ice-cold water over my head. She’d uncovered my M.O. I couldn’t own it then. It was very painful to hear. But I wrote it down, because it screamed the truth at me.

As I lived through my 30s, 40s, and early 50s, I was forever searching for “cures.” I went to one specialist after another, looking for the thing that would explain my deep sadness, my lack of connection to the world around me. I manifested dysfunction as a cry for help. I hoped I would find the answers that would rescue me from my pain. I begged for diagnoses. I begged for medications. I went on disability. I convinced myself after years of being a professional patient that there must be a pill for what ails me.

Being sick with physical illnesses like bronchitis, colds, or the flu, or with mental illnesses like anxiety and depression provided ways for me to stop. To slow down when things in my life got too challenging. The illnesses were real. The body and mind are connected, and sometimes we create illness from held trauma and fear. I don’t believe this is the case with all illness. I think the somatic piece has been a central theme in my life. I didn’t know how to identify feelings, I didn’t know how to speak my truth or ask for what I needed. I didn’t know I could.

I didn’t know that I could create boundaries, that I could say no when things were challenging without having to add illness on top of it to make my “no” valid.

I had no idea that what was going on with me was rooted in a lack of something, and to access that “something” might require some dedicated work and time. It would require total honesty.  Something spiritual and based in self-love. In discovering and releasing trauma I hadn’t fully understood. I did know that I didn’t love myself. I didn’t have confidence or any clear sense of self-esteem. I didn’t recognize my talents. I apologized for being. All the while I experienced success in just about anything I pursued. I discounted my victories and walked through life feeling like a fraud. I lived in a state of ambivalence, afraid to grow up and pushing love away.

One of the things that I’ve learned in therapy and in Program is that when I’m not feeling well physically, it might be a sign that I’m becoming depressed, that I’m not dealing with areas of my life that need to be dealt with. I’m learning to listen for those messages, to that voice that lives inside and knows the truth. I’m learning I can ask for help without needing to create a crisis. I’m deserving of care, not because I’m sick but because I’m human. Because I’m worthy. I don’t need to be sick to be seen.

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