Maintaining Autonomic Control
I had a stressful and unexpected mishap at a doctors appointment this morning. I entered the clinic and was met with a member of my care team along with a higher up in the Honor Health facility that informed me there had been—yet another—violation of their clinic. They spoke to me about the momentous mishap of my Mayo Clinic immunology referral and added because I had ACCHS (which was not affiliated with Mayo), I was falsely informed that I could pay out-of-pocket for Mayo’s doctor appointments. In fact, each time my referral had been sent before, it was illegally done by the office and to accept admission put me at risk of losing my health insurance.
I looked back in utter shock. This rapid depletion of control invited my least favorite friend to rush in to rescue me, anger.
This least favorite friend was one I had met halfway through college. She didn’t grow her relationship with me over time in a trustful, meaningful manner, but much rather barged herself into my life when she felt like she needed to the most. She intrudes on all my most important decisions, relationships, and overpowers my other emotions. Since she arrived so late and forcefully into my life, I wasn’t quite sure how to handle her. The less I handled her, the more shame I felt about her presence. For the sake of brutal honesty, she wasn’t always the prettiest either.
Just like with my chronic pain, I knew the key to managing her would be to dive into the complexities behind the reasons she needed an arrival in the first place.
If you were like me, raised in an unpredictable and emotionally volatile environment, you start automatically protecting yourself to maintain safety within your small being. During this time, flighting was my favorite, except I didn’t know it was called a “flight response” quite yet. When an elementary school counselor first coined this term to me, I thought, “That doesn’t make sense because I’m afraid of flying?” What she meant was the constant anxiety attacks, stomach pains, and overall feeling of meekness. It was a psychological way of saying: I was always on the search for an exit.
The clock is about 5 minutes until I can get out of class and make it to the bus. The bus is only about 10 minutes to home. 7 stops in that 10 minutes. What if I don’t make it to stop 3 without becoming violently ill on this school bus? We have 17 miles to our next town off the trail, If I can just fall asleep in our tent now, we will see Quincy by tomorrow night. You can do this, it’s only 4 more bus stops, 17 more miles.
In college, this response made me feel weak and I despised my environmentally driven fear. I decided the only answer would be to conquer my environment instead. Shortly after I made this empowering decision, I became sick and chronically ill. Then, anger appeared at my front door.
At first, I felt a bit shocked, since this wasn’t someone I personally knew, or at least witnessed within my inner world. I mean surely, she got the wrong house…after growing up with angry adults, I made the decision at 12 to never invite her into my future home. Initially hesitant but eventually intrigued by her confidence, I brought her in. Yet, I was still embarrassed by her ugliness and hid her quickly to the outside world. She was like a sex worker; you felt bold having her there, but ashamed enough of her that you peered out your front door to make sure your neighbors didn’t see, but eventually those closest to you—such as roommates—would catch her. As time passed and I yearned to grow in confidence and step out of victim mode, I found that when I had her beside me, I started having more control again. I no longer would shy away or cry when hurt. Instead, I’ve discovered a new method that allowed me to stand firmly against my family and health. I knew she was dangerous in a lovely way, but what I didn’t know is she presented herself in a different form before Ifully recognized her.
Starting in my body and while she was in disguise, she found alternative ways to be known. This is essentially the emotion behind autoimmune disease. The body starts to fight and protect itself, but what it doesn’t know, is there isn’t always something to protect itself from. She comes to give you favors, but she cannot jog your memory for when you even requested them.
I was bound by weakness and fear as a child. As a result, I walk into a new environment with the same emotional state—failing to realize—I’m in a different place than before, a safer one now. Much like the weakness I felt while becoming infected with many viruses and bacterial ruptures. In which my body “fights” by triggering an immune response, although it fails to realize, sometimes there isn’t a virus present. It fought—and won—so many battles it got stuck in a pattern of fighting. It’s essentially my body’s way of saying “fuck you for messing with me, I’m going to win,” in which it inevitably destroys its own organs (AUTO-immune) disease. Eventually, with the loss of too many soldier cells going to battle, ironically the immune system is left unable to properly fight when a real battle comes along and damages its system even further. Anger enticed me as it is a form of “fighting back,” but it can and will destroy your relationships and damage your heart. In which I take it alongside the immune system, and explain, “Please, this wasn’t something we needed to fight for.”
Once you realize this anger and self-destruction isn’t helpful anymore you kindly, yet—assertively ask it to leave (a trick it once taught you), but this time it tells you it won’t. I should have known anger would be so stubborn, I mean…what did I expect?!
As she realized she had the power to stay in my life, she did. As she first taught me the ways of control, paradoxically, she gained control over me.
But something I’m starting to realize: She is an illusion, and her tactics are simply bluffs.
As I stand over the wooden desk of this honor health clinic, making crevices in its cracks by gripping the ends, I become quite flushed. My tone becoming harsher and harsher, “What do you mean you don’t have treatment for me and YOU’RE telling me, I accept a visit at this place who might help me…I will potentially lose my health insurance?”. Glaring at the innocent administrator informing me of this horrific news—I realized—getting angry will not take this pain away. Her fits are all just bluffs to say, “I will no longer allow this to happen to me.” Anger is quite powerful, but she can’t get me to the doctor or comfort me when the harrowing realization that there isn’t an answer nor much treatment to my condition, settles in. That our country is set up in a malicious way that causes some to profit while others who are financially or medically struggling to not succeed. Yet, we cannot comprehend the privilege we hold to other countries, in which no amount of anger will protect their marginalized people and children either.
To preface—when I refer to her giving me control, I don’t mean in a manipulative “Win Friends and Influence People” way. I mean the basic control over one’s bodily autonomy to make them feel safe.
While she tells me she possesses this kind of control, she can’t give me back my hiking legs or allow me the freedom to pursue my dream job like those around me (or at least for now). She cannot change my mother’s unstable personality or stop her erratic behaviors nor undo the inappropriate actions of that older man towards me in college. She cannot help my father become financially liberated or give him the same opportunities of those that didn’t come alone to America at 16. She cannot convince my stepdad to love me just as much as my half-sister—his real daughter. She cannot explain how inappropriate it is for my mom to constantly overstep my boundaries or take away my ill-advice childhood. She cannot cure me, and she will not take away the grief for the years, relationships, and opportunities lost because of my own actions.
She is merely an apparition of control and a rebrand of fear or grief into a more confident package. She is the basis behind most wars. Aside from greed of course, but is always looking for more control in similar ways.
But the truth is, I must find ways to regain control in my life without victimhood and more importantly, without her. In small steps I remind myself that I am safe and there isn’t a need to fight anymore. She will not serve me in helping myself or aiding others in their fights.
When I feel my spleen and bladder start to inflame as if there is a recollected infection, I gently say to my body, “It’s okay, you don’t have to fight anymore.” And rather than becoming resentful at my own anger, I remind her the situations in which she is not useful to protect me anymore. I find other ways to take my power back and stand up for others without her. These are the ways in which I learn to maintain control over my bodily autonomy through compassion.
