Image: Artist Unknown

A few weeks ago I had a bathroom floor moment. I first read about this moment on Glennon Doyle’s blog: http://momastery.com/blog/ . She was lying on her bathroom floor having just discovered she was pregnant and realized that she had hit rock bottom with her drinking and purging. It was a dark night of the soul, and it woke her up. My moment was metaphoric. A psychological bathroom floor. I was in bed when it hit, around 11:00pm on a Monday night. There were revelations, proclamations, apologies. There was even a full-blown panic attack. I sobbed while Harlan held me and talked me off the ledge. Here is what was revealed in those wee hours:

I have been terrified by and angry at my illness.
I have not been ready to accept that I am really chronically ill.
My illness has highlighted truths I was not willing to see.
I have not been a kind and loving friend to myself.
I have lost my sense of self.
This started long before I became sick.
And has affected my most intimate relationships.

My last post, “New”, was the catalyst for my breakthrough, the first chink in the armor. I started to see glimmers of the truth. My bathroom floor moment stripped me of every last one of my defenses and cracked me wide open.

After a few dramatic hours a peace blanketed me. My mind floated above me like dandelion fluff. And my soul appeared, fragmented, glinting silver in the dark. I was dazed…empty…clean. Awake.

I held my illness responsible for my unhappiness. But my illness itself won’t be my downfall. It will be my ability or lack of ability to come to terms with the twists and turns my life has taken that will determine my well-being (and that of my family).

I was not ready to face the depths of my pain.
But I am ready now.
At least I will try my hardest.
So I will search my soul in order to find myself again.
I will do the work.
For as long as it takes.

And hopefully I will come out whole on the other side.