Facing Demons

Fighting your inner demons is something most humans battle with, most daily, everyone has their owner inner demons - weight issues, anxiety, depression, anger, feelings of failure and lack of self confidence are just some examples.

I have battled with weight issues and lack of self confidence all my life, battling bulimia in my teens and more recently in my late 20s, these issues never leave you and only take a small comment or look to resurface.  Most people around me will not know about these demons inside me as I put on a great act! Even though I am happily married to someone I have been with since the year 2000 who loves me, I still see a different person than she sees when I look in the mirror, even writing this, having spent the last 7 years on high dose steroids means my weight has bottomed  at 61kg and peaked at 81kg and believe me this has done me no good mentally and despite knowing the cause it is hard to reason with yourself and love yourself when you feel so low, I already know that once my line has healed I already have plans to loose the weight gained by the Rituximab last summer. 

Demons are excellent shape-shifters, I always think they come from programmes like Heroes and they have the ability to morph from one torturous form to another, one moment you have feelings of failure and the next you are wide awake at 2am and you feel like chucking in the towel.

Recently, and I do not mind admiting, I have felt so overwhelmed by life that I often thought I can not stand another minute; emotional, mental and physical pain was just to much and even trying to tell myself that the physical pain is temporary didn't help.  I have laid awake for hours on end thinking, everyone knows everything is always worse in your head in the middle of the night!  

Currently, waking up daily and seeing the Tegaderm dressing reminding me, that dare I forget I have a permanent chest line, caused me to feel so overwhelmed, knowing you need ongoing treatment and you have no venous access and the only option is a permanent chest line is a big thing to deal with mentally, emotionally and then physically.  The physical pain is something that has never really caused me issues, with a regular pain score over 7/10, I can easily say I am used to pain and the feeling it brings.  My pain is dealt with temporarily using opioids but the mental and emotional feelings only I can work through, knowing it caused my family upset, especially my sister and father was very hard on me.  My wife has always been my rock and nothing seems to phase her and it truly, hand on a stack of Bible's does not bother her in the slightest, she currently dresses the area around the line and cleans the area daily and is in training to flush and lock the lines. My sister knows just how strong Kim is as she witnessed this strength first hand at my grandfather Peter's funeral.

 Although, I am proud, independent and like to believe pretty self sufficient, I try not to weather storms alone now. 

Denying inner demons, repressing demons with drink or drugs is something I have never tried as I always believed battling makes you stronger, helps you grow as a person.  I learnt this when I lost my best friend Gordon in my early 20's to VCJD, the overwhelming grief numbed me for years and it wasn't until a time period leading up to my wedding in 2016 that I felt I could deal with my repressed feelings and move them into a new place in my head and heart. 

Often demons feel like a shadow, a little like a puppy that follows you around.  Throughout my teens I didn't mind this, a daily battle a little like a dance.  Sister Carmel who was an Elderly Sister in my secondary school that we could visit and take time out from lessons advised me that if you kept trying to bury the demons, you feed each one and it comes out in projection, attributing all your own issues to others.

Everyone, like me has the guts to face anger, fear, jealousy, lack of self-acceptance, guilt, and anything else that is deemed unacceptable in society today but it takes guts to do this and if you have ever been ill, divorced, suffered with addiction or been disowned by your family for being homosexual then you have battled and faced your demons.  It wasn't easy, definitely not a walk in the park and even when you had laid awake night after night in dispare thinking this will never end it did and as the days turn into weeks you feel alive and at peace again, you feel stronger and recharged, ready for whatever life can throw at you next.

Having the chest line I believed was going to be the worst thing I would ever go through in my life but on entering the theatre on the 16th June, I found some resilience.  This resilience I had known before, it showed its face to me during my first Vas Cath procedure (Vas Cath is a line in the neck to allow treatment), when they made the first cut and placed the first part of the line, resilience, like an old familiar friend was back, pushing me to a new limit, stretching me, allowing me to bear what I originally believed was unbearable. 

Life is about the here and now.  Life is full is ups and downs, highs and lows, excitement and dispare, elation and grief but taking life on means you will need to find your own stability.  I have my own private thoughts a little like a mantra that gets me through trying times.

A couple of days ago, I had to attend a meeting and to be honest I would of done anything to get out off it but that was only because I didn't want to face inner demons.  I went and the dealt with my demons, stuck to my personal private mantra, using it like an inner speech that Theresa May could do with! I knew deep down that by attending this meeting, by persevering and thinking to myself what is actually the worst that could happen here, I knew that I could and would make it to the other side.

Life is constantly changing, everyone is constantly moving and shifting around and feelings inside me today about my chest line or my weight for example won't last because they can't, what I mean by lasting is forever plaguing me day in day out 24/7, that's why life constantly changes and that's what makes everything about life so interesting.  Embracing the vicissitudes of life with compassion for yourself and others means that you allow yourself to be here right now in the present, experiencing what is going on around you.