Thinking how I can be supportive, loving and kind at a time of great distress for all humanity. A memory of when in the 80s I was showing signs of serious medical illness after an acute "viral" infection which required hospitalization for treatment of tremors. But scarier? #FEAR
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As a very sensitive person who'd had plenty of trauma already as well as successes, #FEAR was not very frequent an emotion for me as I, as we can, somehow adapted to life and found focus in college, guitar, music, poetry, friendship and community. But the "virus" did not resolve.
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What was worse, is that it I was showing symptoms and enough blood anomolies to absolutely clinically demonstrate something was going very wrong physically. So months of diagnostics and testing left even fine diagnosticians baffled and I saw they, too had "caught" this #FEAR.
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Prescribed benzos to control the tremors/seizure issues. They also put me on an anti-emetic anti-nausea drug that was also used to treat psychosis. I became sicker, #FEAR spread more, off of that I went. Sent home alone, my Mom in NJ said come. I was still under her insurance.
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What I underwent in the next year was just insane not only for me but for everyone - medical folks, family, friends. Illness and #FEAR especially can be crippling. My Mom and her partner went to Europe for vacation. Her friend Eda, a fellow professor at Kean University, visited.
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Fast forward #FEAR a few years. I'd returned to Tucson with a diagnosis of "CFS" (aka M.E.). Not exactly a helpful or a real diagnosis, but a persistent set of common symptoms showing up in a lot of people testing negative for HIV/AIDS. This is how I found BBSs > Internet > Web!
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I met a woman a few years my elder. She'd been born with a congenital heart disease. She had what isi known as xenotransplantation. A pig's heart in place of her diseased one. She was inspirational and wise beyond lifetimes. She talked to me about #FEAR and role played a process.
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The roleplay process that almost completely eradicated #FEAR for me in a matter of hours to this day is this.
1. Take a chair and place it in front of you.
2. Imagine or use a doll/pillow/whatever works to anthropomorphiize FEAR
3. THANK FEAR FIRST
4. ASK FEAR TO NOT PERSIST
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I did this several times, saying a variety of things (well, yelling at times lol). She hugged me and told me she loved me. Sadly, she left us all too soon, but she has never left me. Her love and wisdom halted overwhelming fear. We eradicated #FEAR beyond its flight or fight use.
Apr 10, 2020 · 10:14 PM UTC
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One issue remained unresolved for me, and that was the question of how #FEAR lead to love. We all see how fear leads to hatred, to anger - a lot of negative emotion. But real love? It's taken years, but I recognize this week how it played out for me.
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When we truly look #FEAR in the face, we must also learn to manage all those negative feelings. No matter the belief system, the pervasive message and instinct in my head had to do with #FORGIVENESS - and not just one or two but ALL including ourselves.
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