On September 11 2001, I had just left Sun Microsystems. The plan was to spend a few weeks recovering from the extreme burnout I was feeling, then get another job.
Somehow, my plan changed after planes were crashed into New York, Virginia and Pennsylvania. I felt compelled, by a force that would not be denied, to follow a path closer to my heart. That turned out to be starting my Evangelist Marketing business. Continue reading
Learn to pause … or nothing worthwhile will catch up to you.
–Doug King
The above quote gave me, well, pause! Is this what CFS is here to teach me? Maybe that’s what “Morgan” meant when he said I was experiencing a “reality check.”
I’m determined to make good use of this lesson. And when I get further with figuring out how, I’ll tell you all about it!
It’s amazing – the mere process of pursuing this intention is already beginning to reduce my anxiety. See you soon.
“The only time I’ve seen results this bad was with a patient who told me stories like, “My mother got me through the Holocaust and when we made it to the States she killed herself.”"
By 2008, I was being treated by a department at California Pacific Medical Center that specializes in complex cases. One of the first things they did was a neurotransmitter test and their reaction to my test results clued me in to the connection between trauma and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.
I looked back at my life. What could equal the Holocaust combined with a mother’s suicide? It was obvious to me that as a young child, I had experienced my parents’ divorce in a traumatic way. It wasn’t the fact that they divorced; it was the way they didn’t appear to hold anything back in using me against each other. I imagine that when I continued to do well at school (albeit a little less so), the effects of their behavior on me were too subtle to get their attention. Continue reading
The winds of grace are blowing perpetually; we have just to raise our sails. –Ramakrishna
I heard somewhere that if you do the work of getting 51% of the way to your goal, grace will carry you the rest of the way. Aren’t I there yet? Grace, where are you? By the way, what is grace?
After my life narrowed to trying to get out of bed, I went through a few medical doctors, then a few naturopathic doctors. Then I went for something radical and tried Dr. Young’s pH miracle protocol. I improved and thought that was the final answer. Sadly, no. Not exactly. Continue reading
I was in a flat somewhere in Edinburgh, Scotland when I got into a conversation about Euclidean geometry. My fellow undergraduate was studying mathematics (I was getting a Bachelor’s in chemistry), and had just learned a system of mapping three dimensional space using circles. This meant that what we had all been taught as children – x, y and z axes that were straight lines – was merely a particular way of looking at things. It had come from Euclid‘s approach to describing shapes mathematically. Instead of looking at space as being made of cubes and straight lines, you can look at it as circles and spheres. What we’d been taught as the way to map 3D space was actually just one way, based on one man’s theory. Whoa.
Then there’s the theory of light. First Newton said rays of light were made up of a series of particles or corpuscles (the corpuscular theory of light). My memory gets a little sketchy here but I believe this competed with a wave theory of light for a while. Sometime in the nineteenth century, someone set up an experiment to test which theory was correct. The wave theory correctly predicted the results of the experiment and won the day until Einstein came along. I can’t tell you what is happening on the pioneering edge of physics today but I do know that as recently as when I was in high school (or not so recently) quantum physics helped us to equate the corpuscular nature with the wave-like nature of light. Whenever I solved problems in Advanced-level physics, I knew how to choose which equations to use based on which aspect of light I was dealing with. Continue reading
Realitynibs is taking some time for hibernation. I need to settle into my new place, put the finishing touches on the Realitynibs.com Sponsorship Program and plan my 2011 healing. I don’t know whether I’ll be completely recovered by the end of the year but I will be better than I am now.
All these things take money, so I will be working on ensuring that too! In the meantime I’d love to hear from you. What have you liked best about Realitynibs.com? What about least? Do make good use of the comment box below! Continue reading
“So let me get this straight. You were kidnapped, imprisoned, then abused by your rescuer?” Maureen summarized.
I wanted to prove her wrong. I had to show her that it wasn’t quite like that. She mustn’t reduce my smart, worldly parents to such shocking terms. But as I searched unsuccessfully for proof to support my feelings, I had to accept that she was right. Being flown first class to the best schools in the world does not change these facts.
My mother left my dad just before my ninth birthday. She dropped me off with friends who were instructed not to let me go outside, then disappeared. After a week or two, I was taken to an uncle’s home where I was locked in a room. Suddenly and unexpectedly, my dad walked in. I was thrilled to return home with him! That is, until he moved his girlfriend in. Continue reading
“Wait … I’m beautiful!”
I had been lying on the sofa in a late night stupor when a forgotten childhood event came to me in a flash. The setting was “Francis” making a rare visit to my mother’s flat.
“Your daughter’s beautiful,” Francis had commented.
“What about me?” my mother replied.
Francis went on to say a few words about mother being beautiful but that a twelve-year-old had a different, youthful kind of beauty. Continue reading
I listened in horror to my voicemail. Somehow, it had recorded a conversation between my father and a friend of his. The incisions on my tummy had only just become painless in September 2005. But no longer. Apparently, my body couldn’t take listening to less than flattering words from my own parent.
Later his friend tried to justify my dad’s behavior. “Devin” had expressed anger because my father was nowhere to be found while his daughter prepared for, then underwent, major surgery. Father was only reacting to that anger. “At any point in all this, did he ask how I am?” I inquired. Silence. Continue reading
How will I know when I have recovered? This question is not as easy as it may first appear.
My original plan for recovery was to go back to what I was doing. This was Evangelist Marketing, a business I’d just started and, a social life! I assumed getting better would be a small detour. There were some concerns in my mind about whether I would be able to handle running a solo business but I’m a responsible person and the backup plan of getting another job was acceptable to me.
That was five years and seven months ago. Continue reading
