Forgiving Myself For Having Limitations

Two days ago, as I was preparing to leave on a trip to New Mexico, a lot of stress that had been building up in recent weeks reached a zenith. I started experiencing tightness in my chest, my upper GI tract hurt mightily, my stomach was intensely upset, and I was generally feeling horrible and nauseous. All morning, as I packed my bags and drove around town gathering food items for the flight, the tension kept increasing as well. I meditated, as I've been doing of late, trying to calm my nerves, but to little effect. By the time my intimate partner came to pick me up for the drive to the airport, I was so weak and dizzy I was quite concerned about being on the airplane. When we stopped at her house to pick up an additional item I had forgotten to bring along, I was sweating profusely. She decided, in recognition of my condition, to strongly recommend that we head to the Emergency Room (of a hospital that had my medical records) instead of driving to the airport, a recommendation about which I was very much in agreement.

I ended up being at the ER of a local hospital for 24 hours, with the personnel administering a battery of tests to determine if I was having a heart attack or if my heart was being stressed past it's healthy limit. They released me the following day, stating that, according to their tests, my heart was strong and healthy; in fact, the cardiologist stated that, for a 64 year old man, I was in quite fit condition. Which, though, sort of 'begged the question', since the chest tightness, upper GI tract pain and other symptoms had not abated to a significant degree. But from their perspective, having treated the more concerning issue of potential fatality, I was in good enough shape to be released, to followup with treatment by my primary physician.

As the evening at the ER had progressed, it had become quite obvious to me that I had suffered a significant panic attack, and though I had flown in many planes in my lifetime, this particular flight was simply 'too much', given my current medical and psychological condition.

Precursors To This Event

For the past month, as I was preparing to leave St. Louis, I had had problems finding shoes that I was not allergic to. Now, I know that sounds like a rather unusual condition, but I did some research online and found out that it is not as unusual as it sounds, that other people have shoe allergies as well. For me, the issue if one of tolerating the material the shoes are made with, especially the glues that are used in many modern shoes. Especially when I try on new sports shoes (which is primarily what I wear on a daily basis) I often, after about 10 minutes, become quite nauseous and my upper GI tract/solar plexus area feels like it is 'disintegrating' [at which point I quickly take the shoes off]. And that is followed by stomach acid overflowing in my body, which lasts for another day or two. As a result, I end up having to 'cook' the shoes on my sunporch, allowing the sunlight to 'bake' the glue fumes out of the shoes, for several weeks, before even considering wearing them.

My current pair of New Balance training shoes had started to tear on the sides, but I couldn't just 'go to the store and get new ones' due to this allergy. I ended up taking every pair of shoes in my house (and we are talking about maybe 10 pairs), including a couple of new pairs of NB shoes, and even ones I hadn't worn in several years, and placing them, shoe tongues back, on the sunporch to cook, until they become -- hopefully -- tolerable.

On top of this, I started developing some serious shin splints in my left leg, a problem that I have had periodically over many years. For the past several weeks now, that leg has had 'frozen, cramped muscles' in the front of the leg, due to the shin splints. I arranged for an appointment with my podiatrist, but unfortunately I could not get one for 6 weeks.

Finding Out, In A Round-About Way, About The Death of a Beloved Friend

Both of those stresses had been straining the limits of my physical and mental health tolerance during this past month. I was concerned that, quite literally, I would not have shoes to wear when I went to New Mexico, shoes that is that didn't make me ill. But the event that finally pushed the whole physical and psychological tolerance 'over the limit' was finding out, as I was calling friends in Albuquerque, arranging to get together, that Shoshona Blankman, my therapist of many years, with whom I had developed a sort of 'older, trusted sister' and cheerleader relationship with since leaving NM in 1998, had died six months earlier. That hit me as a major shock to my heart. I only found out quite inadvertently, by calling her home phone and finding that it was disconnected, and then writing to a mutual colleague whom I have contact with via LinkedIn, asking if anything had happened to Shoshona that I needed to know about. The mutual colleague wrote back with that stunning information.

I was stunned, shocked, stupefied, almost incoherent with sadness upon hearing the information. Shoshona had been my mental health therapist from 1986-98. Our professional relationship began as I was slowly recovering from an intensely traumatic nervous breakdown (or, as Shoshona, in her wonderful 'guide' role so thoughtfully redefined it, a 'nervous breakthrough'), following my voluntarily ceasing all alcohol consumption and also on the heels of an acupuncture treatment that had gone devastatingly amiss. [The acupuncturist had -- as a female friend, who had training in acupressure, speculated several years thereafter -- felt my pulses and noted that the heart meridian was weak and had probably driven straight to the center to open it up. The problem, she noted, was that, for sexual abuse and physical trauma survivors, that is the last approach one should take, because it simultaneously blows all the healthy emotional protectors loose, and the PTSD floods the body all at once.]

Any number of times over the period Shoshona had been my therapist, the PTSD had reached such painful points that I had seriously considered suicide, and each time she had, gently but firmly, pulled me 'back from the edge'. She had also, in the late 1980s, after one of those points of suicidal ideation, introduced me to the Incest Model, noting that this 'psychological model' might address the "20% of your therapy which never seemed to fit" in the rest of my recovery process. [I was well aware and had distinct memories of the physical torture I had experienced at the hands of my father, often encouraged and arranged by my mother, but there were 'gender confusion' issues that kept haunting my thoughts that didn't seem to fit in with the torture.] Needless to say, though the Incest Model fit like a glove, as an answer to those feelings of gender dissonance, I was also stunned that there was even more trauma I had to face in order to achieve any level of healthily mental health recovery. But, without a doubt, the introduction to that awareness of being the victim of incest as a child has assisted my recovery in a very positive (though, of course. also painful) way. And has led me to study childhood sexual abuse, both for information for myself and for assisting others in their recovery [as an educator around men's emotional wellness and the issues faced by adult male sexual abuse survivors].

We had, early on, had a more open professional relationship, in that I had a friendship with her as well as a therapy relationship. I don't mean like 'buddies' -- that would have been inappropriate -- but we sometimes took acting classes together, or mutually attended professional trainings, and I came to know, in a tangential way, her husband and children. It 'worked for us', because I was stable enough to handle it comfortably, knowing the 'dividing line' between being a client and being a friend. After I left Albuquerque to come to St. Louis [in part due to Shoshona's motivation -- as she pointed out, given my men's wellness ideas and assertive personality, I 'needed a larger playground' than Albuquerque could provide to me], she noted, in our 2 or 3 times a year phone conversations, that she could now be my 'cheerleader', since I had a therapist here in St. Louis. In addition to those calls, every time I visited Albuquerque, we would have lunch together, to catch up on whatever successes I had had here, with my social work education, professional life, and emotional recovery. Then, after about 2004 (after my mother had died), she slowly 'opened up' the friendship even more, letting me know about things that were going on in her personal life, which thereby made the friendship more a 'buddy' situation, which both of us handled quite well.

Then, about 5 years ago, she had her first bout with ovarian cancer. She seemed to recover successfully, but the cancer returned about a year ago. When I last talked to her (sometime last spring, maybe February), she said she was slowly recovering from the cancer and had a very upbeat attitude about having a long-term full life to enjoy. Which is why, when I learned that she had died this previous April, the news came as such a traumatic shock. I've since talked with her children about the situation, and they have apologized for not informing me sooner, knowing that their mother had had 'more than a therapist/client relationship' with me.

For the first week or so after hearing about her death, I was shocked but had a difficult time allowing the tears to flow (I'm not a man who is backward about crying, and in fact often recommend it as a pathway to recovery when discussing men's emotional wellness). Then, beginning last week, when I gave my introductory sermon for the Men's Wellness Ministry that I have initiated at the First Unitarian Church of St. Louis (my congregation) and dedicated the religious service to Shoshona, the tears started to flow. And they have flowed ever since, each and every time I begin to talk about Shoshona and how much our friendship and therapeutic relationship meant to me. Now, I can't talk about it without choking up with tears -- which is positive and for which I'm thankful! Feeling that sadness, while at the same time knowing the joy I felt for her as my therapist, guide, cheerleader, and most beloved friend, allows me to know, deep in my heart, how much her passing hurts and how much I miss her.

The Inner Child Gains More Of A Voice

The additional point that needs to be elucidated, concerning the panic attack before the flight, was that I've been working on 'inner child' therapy issues for the past 30 years, and know that that inner child, having no 'oral voice', speaks to me through my body. Each and every time I have an allergic reaction to a medication or food or material, or a triggering event, my upper GI tract/solar plexus cramps up. I know, from studying chakras, that that is also the heart chakra point, the place in my body that allows my heart 'to have a voice' and get my attention. And I've learned, from 'speaking with my body' via meditation, that my frightened, terrified inner child lives there, in the main -- or at least that is the place that 'gets my attention' when his terror speaks out.

In the past couple of weeks, I've slowly started to develop, with the assistance of my therapist, a way to 'have a conversation with that terrified child' without being flooded by his pain. In other words, to 'have a relationship with him' without 'the adult becoming him' again. What I know is that he will only be safe with my adult self if he knows that I won't become overwhelmed by his memories of terror.

The image I get, when I meditate on that point in my body, is of a very young child rolled-up in a ball, crying out in anguish, being viciously kicked by an adult man who is 'having the time of his life' engaging in sadistic torture. And, of course, that was me when I was a small child and the adult was my out-of-control, insane father. The trouble this past week, though, is that the division between 'a relationship with' and 'being the terrified child' broke down due to all the other above noted traumas. I became 'flooded' with the inner child's anguish, in a way that I could not handle adequately. Each and every time, of late, that I 'touch' that point in my body and remember the terror of my childhood, I begin to cry, deeply and resonantly. Which is positive, in that the tears are coming out and I'm acknowledging the reality of my childhood experiences, but sometimes difficult to cope with 'in the moment'.

But I also need to know that the medical outcomes aren't solely due to PTSD, but could have very real, organic causes, the healing of which would positively affect my self-image and comfort with myself, and the long-term recovery of that terrified inner child.

Forgiving Myself

Hence, the summation of all of these events over the past month, in preparation for going to New Mexico and attending the New Mexico Men's Wellness Conference -- where I would once again be around very supportive 'brothers' -- is that I need to forgive myself for having limitations, for being a human being who still has, at the age of 64, some deep-seated, incredibly painful PTSD issues that need to be resolved and recovered from. 

I kind of feel, in the last couple of days since I missed my flight (due to being in the ER), that I'm living in the Twilight Zone, in that 'I'm not supposed to be here' in St. Louis right now. I had my life, for the next three weeks, planned out to be in Albuquerque enjoying the Balloon Fiesta, the delights of visiting friends and family, and the joy of attending the Wellness Conference. But, as I keep trying to remind myself, "stuff happens", changes that we didn't plan for, but which we need to attend to "for our long-term health" and emotional recovery.

As Pema Chödrän notes, in When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times (from which I used a quote as one of the readings during my Men's Wellness Ministry sermon) we simply 'don't know' how life will turn out. Sometimes it is clearly to our advantage, other times not, but the only thing we have any control over is how we deal with [or cope with] what has occurred. And sometimes what appears to be a 'mistake' or 'setback' is actually an advantage. What I do know is that, on Thursday, getting on that flight to Albuquerque would have been a serious mistake. Whatever anxiety I was feeling before going to the airport was not going to dissipate once I got there, and that I would have caused myself and the flight attendants a major crisis had I forced myself to 'tough it out'. So, I did what I had to do and, with the support of my intimate partner, took care of myself in the best way possible. Hence, if I can't go to New Mexico right now, because now I need to deal with very 'real' medical [and psychological] issues, then I need to forgive myself for having human failings and limitations.

And for all sexual abuse survivors, in their journey with coping with the outcomes of PTSD, that personal forgiveness is a major hurdle to overcome. Stuff happens and there is no way to know what the 'ultimate' reason was for a specific event, but proactively facing the issues that arise and 'need our attention', right now, right here, is the best and most healthy approach. New Mexico will still be there, the Wellness Conference will likely continue next year, my friends and family will still love me and want me to visit, but I will be in much better shape, for myself and all concerned, if I attend to 'what I need to pay attention to' in the here and now. That may be a 'limitation', but it is a healthy limitation.