All I ask is that as you read this, you do so with the compassion and awareness that I had to grasp as I experienced these events. What I am about to say has never left my brain, has never been admitted, or spoken out loud, until now.

What I’m about to share are the types of things we keep to ourselves. They are our highly personal feelings of shame, and the stories we want to bury forever.

When I was in the beginnings of my healing journey my body physiology was so fucked up that I lost control of my bowels and my bladder. I was so devastatingly stressed out that for a long period of time – like a year or two or three – I needed adult diapers. I had nothing medically wrong with me, it was literally the level of stress I was holding.

At first I wasn’t prepared, and I had to be on alert – scanning the streets and sidewalk for other people, so they wouldn’t see when I peed or messed my pants. I layered, so I could tie a shirt or sweater around my waist. My poor dog, so many walks were cut short.   

I always – I’m talking every hour, every day, for a few years – felt like I had to go. But I couldn’t recognize when it would come. I would try to go before I left the house, even if it was just to walk my dog around the block. But it didn’t matter, we’d be just far enough that I couldn’t jaunt back, just far enough that he was ready and going. Just far enough that even if I turned around right there and then, home was too far away for me to make it. I was just as vulnerable and exposed out on the street as he was. My shame was heavy.

My whole body was upset all the time – like for the full 24 hours, day after day after day. My stomach was always knotted, my lungs always pumping, and my heart always pounding. I was constantly trying to calm myself down – with breathing, counting, stilling myself, and endless compassionate self-nurturing conversations.

I hated leaving the house.

Even though I was at that point safe, I was still suffering from the trauma, and I had a very difficult time letting go. I was diagnosed with Complex PTSD.

It all came about as a result of what I had lived through. I was forced back home, to live with my parents; I was in my early forties. The pressure I put on myself around that, and the inabilities to take care of myself in every way, only added to my stress, and I created a whole new paradigm of toxic cause and affect.

I just couldn’t hold myself together.

All of the things required to make a healthy human were missing for me – sleep, routine, menstrual cycles, people, something to look forward to – all missing.

I was a mess. And added to everything, I lived with pain from breaking my back.

My cognitivity was so suppressed, productivity was absent, and any kind of motivation felt like I was hanging from an insanely high cliff. My fingertips were scraping the edge, and I was slipping, slowly.

That edge made for a dangerously distorted sense of reality, and I was unable to be a nice person. I slapped my mother across her face. I screamed into the face of my 7 year old niece to fuck off. I was perpetually on a rant with everyone, and I honestly did not think it was possible to overcome any of this.

Every time I had to throw away my underwear, and take another shower, I cried. Every conversation that I pleaded, screamed, and demanded – they each made me cry. No matter how hard I apologized, I couldn’t take it back. I couldn’t erase what I had done. Together we have these memories to live with, I cannot lie. I cried because I recognized I was a horrible person. I isolated myself because I was a monster.

I hated this version of me. 

The hate I felt for myself was strong enough to want change. I didn’t want to always have to cry. I wanted to know if I was stuck to live with such a fucked up and broken body. I truly wanted healthy relationships in my life. I wanted a life. And I knew I deserved one – I knew I had done nothing wrong.

It took me years to get what I wanted, but I did it. As the swell of desire rose in me, the more shift I felt. There were so many ways I tested and tried to find me, and I eventually stopped the need to cry. I had to learn how to be me, the me I wanted to be. I am forever grateful for the strength I had, I honestly couldn’t tell you how I found it some days.  

When I tell people I used to live from a place of anger it’s hard for them to believe.

I know now that some of that anger was learned, and transferred behavior – I was reflecting back how I was treated, and showing myself what I didn’t like. I didn’t want to be doing to others what was done to me. The rest of the anger was what I was holding inside, I was no longer willing to suffer in silence – it was my cry for help.

I was able to get through so many events, so many days, that were absolutely devastating and disgraceful, because I had compassion. Without compassion in each of my situations, I wouldn’t have made it. Thankfully I had enough to want more.

That me that I used to be, she’s gone. I did the work to move past all of that anger with the help of many.

What more do you want?

We’re each on our journeys, and we can all do it.

Lisa Karasek, author in The Ultimate Guide to Self-Healing Techniques; 25 Home Practices & Tools for Peak Holistic Health & Wellness. An expert Quantum Healer, TRE® Certified Facilitator and Certified Eating Psychology Coach, who is able to update her client’s states of being to assist in healing. Using ancient, multi-dimensional healing and Holistic Metamorphosis® (an angelic energy healing modality), consciousness-based practices, and TRE® (tension and trauma releasing exercises), Lisa powerfully guides her clients to a healthier, happier, more purposeful life. Lisa is dedicated and passionate about helping you work with the dynamics of your self relationship and believes this is the key to most Mind Body Spirit disease and illness. Find more information about her and her programs.