Why I Stopped Writing

18 May 2018 2 Comments

by Shannon McDonough in Lyme Disease Tags: , , ,

Forbidding_Stop_Sign

Photo credit thecrazyfilmgirl on Flickr.

I have simultaneously looked forward to and dreaded this moment for quite some time, having been seriously thinking about it for more than a year. What would I say about a four and a half year unplanned and totally unintentional hiatus from this blog? How could I explain all that went into that happening and everything that’s happened since? The answer to both is I can’t. At least not in one post.

So I’m just going to tell you why I stopped posting here (hence the title of this piece) and share additional details in due time. Full disclosure: I’m almost as afraid of publishing this post as I was when I published my first post more than seven years ago. There’s something sort of terrifying about putting myself out there to be judged.

Oh, well. Here we go.

I don’t actually remember making a conscious decision to stop writing. After I wrote my last post, Here’s to the Dark Bits I just remember not knowing where to go or what to do next. And being tired. So damn tired.

I had been diagnosed with adrenal fatigue in May 2012 after suffering from severe fatigue, pain, and some other random symptoms for more than a year. My friend Donna recalls that I told her (although I don’t remember this) I wasn’t going to write anymore because with my adrenal fatigue I was just too worn out to write.

I went to several doctors over the years to try to get help; sometimes having to borrow money from my parents to pay for it because I didn’t always have health insurance (support single-payer, yo!). But it wasn’t until February 2017 that I was finally correctly diagnosed with chronic Lyme disease (along with Lyme’s friends Mycoplasma, Babesia, and Bartonella, and Epstein-Barr virus just for kicks).

It took a while to get my immune system to a point where I could even attempt Lyme treatment since the treatment itself can be hard on your body. In September 2017 I started treatment and recently added a new protocol to what I was already taking (my entire day focuses around taking pills and drops and sprays at specific times of the day, with and without food — it’s a job in itself).

For years, I’ve told myself I’ll write again when I feel better. I try to remain hopeful, but so far, not much has improved and I’ve finally come to the realization that this may be my life now. That as much as I want to be healthy again, it could be a long haul if it happens at all. So I decided there was no good time to start writing again and as hard as it is to add something extra to my life right now, I have to do it.

There are so many things I want to talk about — and by ‘talk’ I mean write because I am far better at expressing myself in writing than speaking — so it’s hard to predict what direction this blog will take going forward. I keep an ongoing list of topics in a Note on my iPhone and they run the gamut from what it’s like to live with Lyme disease to how I fell in love with David Duchovny. I just know I want to focus on something more than my job and my treatment and just getting through each day.

My posts may be shorter than they used to be and there may be typos and incorrect grammar since one of Lyme’s many fun symptoms is cognitive difficulties, also known as brain fog, (thank god for the Grammarly app) but I’m going to write anyway. I’d love it if you’d cut me some slack for now.

Here’s what I can say: I will write what I can when I can and hopefully it won’t be four years in between posts. Seems like a reasonable goal, right?

……………

I’d love to hear your comments below. If you liked this post, then please ‘Like’ it and share with your friends. And don’t forget to click ‘Follow’ to get email notifications whenever I post something new. But most of all…thank you for reading and being a part of my journey.

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No More New Year’s Resolutions

01 Jan 2012 Leave a comment

by Shannon McDonough in January 2012 Tags: , , , , ,

I used to make New Years resolutions. Every December 31st I’d contemplate what I needed to change or work on and that would become my resolution for the year. Often those resolutions were things I needed to DO; lose weight, pay off debt, get more organized. Always things I thought were wrong with me.

Though most resolutions fell by the wayside, by mid-February, I’ve actually succeeded from time to time. For the moment, that is. I’ve lost the weight…more than once. Then gained it back. I paid down my credit card last year only to charge it back up on Christmas shopping. I’ve even been organized on occasion. I’ve had a friend or my mom help me go through piles and purge and sort and file. And then it all starts to pile up again. Resolutions always left me feeling like a failure and began to wonder if I was focusing on the wrong things.

Last year I did something different. I set an intention. A theme, if you will. Instead of trying to change something I thought was wrong with myself, I decided to be more allowing and accepting–of myself, of my circumstances, of the events of my life. I wrote these words “2011 Allowing and Accepting” on a heart-shaped stickie note and put it on my computer where I would see it every day. I looked at it from time to time. But at some point the words started to wear off and I actually forgot about it.

Yesterday I was not feeling my usual optimism about the new year. The last year feels like a blur…to be honest, it’s been exhausting! And even though I’ve taken a MAJOR step forward in my life recently, I was feeling down because I didn’t ‘accomplish’ anything in 2011. At least that’s what I was telling myself. And I’ll admit some fear crept in and had me questioning this new challenge I’ve taken on.

As fear whispered in my ear, I began to feel like I ‘should’ be gearing up for the year ahead. I should be DOing something. I started asking myself a flurry of questions. What do I want the next year to look like? What do I want to accomplish? What can I change? And then I remembered that stickie note. Allowing and Accepting. And it occurred to me the question isn’t what, but who. Who do I want to be in 2012 and beyond?

I took a breath, got quiet for a moment, and listened to that still small voice within. “Believing and Becoming”, it said. In that moment, the fear started to subside as the theme for 2012 began to take shape. Believing and Becoming…I let the words roll around in my mind.

Believing…that even when I can’t see it, I am still moving forward. Because you can truly never go back. Believing that everything has a purpose…even when it sucks or it’s hard or it hurts like hell. You can’t side-step the difficult stuff. Believing in myself and my ability to do what’s best for me. No matter what other people think or say. Believing this path is mine and mine alone.

Becoming…isn’t about DOing more or making changes. It’s about quietly, softly letting the things fall away that aren’t truly me. And in doing so, Becoming more of who I am. It’s about Becoming more confident that my quirks and oddities are not things I need to change, but what make me uniquely me. Standing up for the me I am and not believing I should be anyone else. Dropping the masks I’ve worn most of my life and Becoming…me.

Could I stand to lose weight, pay off my debt and get more organized? Of course I could. But those things don’t matter as much as who I am in the process. And what a process it is!

What’s your intention for 2012? Do you have a theme for the year? It’s who you are, not what you accomplish that will make the biggest difference in your life. And the best part is, you get to decide. Who do you want to be?