I remember the day I knew in my soul that I wouldn’t ever have a baby. I was 16. I was starting to experience severe, unusual pain and my mom took me to that humiliating doctors appointment when they did tests to find my first cyst. That was 21 years ago. Since then, I’ve been down the emotional road of infertility doctors, the desperate hope from my family, the crippling sense of failure every month when I would end up in a ball in pain screaming on the floor and couldn’t leave the house. Then the surgeries began. The “super doctor” I trusted to fix me and give me hope for a family? Well, with one quick slip of his laser he accidentally created a hole inside that would lead me into a darkness. A week later, I was in emergency surgery because of his mistake. Over the next 6 months, 4 more surgeries. After the final “fix” the option was to manage the pain and rehab my strength. “Manage” the pain….
I managed. The pain remained, the drugs quit working. I needed more. Eventually after 5 years of “managing” I wasn’t managing pain anymore. I wasn’t taking pills to kill pain. I was taking them to not feel the discomfort of withdrawal. I was addicted. The Opiates made that choice. I am a YOGA TEACHER. I spend my days so happy teaching people about remaining in their bodies, reminding them to FEEL, but I wasn’t feeling anything anymore. Facing my addiction meant forgiving the doctor who injured me, it meant admitting to myself that I was powerless to a bottle of pills (at least for now), and it meant being honest with the people in my life.
At this point I can say that I am healthier, I am stronger, I am more vibrant and awake and I am not numb because for the first time in 5 years, I am not my opiates.