A year ago I sat on this same couch in the same office, looking at the same human. Cassie Brown. My body filled with fear and eyes with tears that yet another therapy probably ‘wouldn’t work’ how my body needed it too. I thought I was damaged beyond repair, my wrongs and worries couldn’t be rewritten or explained.I’d be ridden with panic, anxiety, and depression for life. Medications I had previously been on made me numb to all emotion one day, and overly emotional the next.
I was all over the place and frequently self sabotaging. Emotionally, I hurt myself and a lot of other people along the way. I either didn’t care about anyone’s feelings or emotions other than my own and my sons, or I cared too much and got trampled over by everyone. There was no happy medium, either way, you split it someone was getting hurt emotionally. The Covid-19 Pandemic came and went and by August of that year, I knew I needed to come off my medication because at this point it had been 5 years on it, it wasn’t helping at all, and I just wanted to be the person I was a long time ago.
I wanted me back, to take control over my life again. But for the life of me, I couldn’t figure out how to get there. If you’ve been on any type of anxiety, panic, or depression meds you know coming off of them is worse than going on them in most cases, especially mine. I started coming off them and I struggled, hard. Daily I thought I was going to die, my children were going to die and the people I loved were going to die. I was terrified, but rarely spoke about it, or addressed it. I got up every day and went through the motions, and made sure I did what I had to do for myself and my son to stay alive, and live a good life while we could. Some days were good, some days were bad, most days I looked over my shoulder waiting for something awful to happen.
I never felt like I had control over anything. I would grasp and jump for anything that gave me any sense of control and security even if it didn’t last long. I told Cassie all of this, that I was struggling bad, that it had been a little over a year without medication and several people referred me to her.
They had told me that if this LENS could help anyone it would help me. I told her that I wanted to gain control of my life back, but I didn’t know where or how to get it, or how to heal. She asked me what I needed to heal from, and even though she had it on paper, she wanted me to say it. So I did, I was shaking. I hate feeling weak, or vulnerable. I told her I lost my daughter tragically before lever even got the chance to really know her and raise her.
I told her I’ve suffered a majority of my life with different things that I know contribute to my anxiety/panic and depression. From sexual and emotional abuse as a small child, autoimmune diseases with diagnosis as an adolescent, domestic abuse, and mostly not understanding and being so terrified of death due to losses I’ve experienced.
Even before losing Madden, the thought of death, dying, or losing anyone shook me to my core.
Cassie didn’t just listen to me, she heard me. She gave no judgment or harsh glances. Instead, she welcomed me with compassion, understanding, empathy, and told me “this will work, but you will have to FEEL ALL OF IT to heal it, you will HAVE to give yourself a lot of grace”.
She told me she could see that I had just been existing, and my brain was working overtime to make sure I remained in fight instead of flight mode because I had conditioned it to be that way. She said * Ticia hope does live here, and this will work AS LONG AS YOU DO.’ And it has. For the past year, I’ve done the hard work, and I continue to do the hard work. Without medication. For 8 months I saw Cassie every other week, I eventually was able to go to every 3 weeks, and now once a month.I have become a lighter and more gentle person with myself and with others, but I still stand strong and honest for the things I believe in. I realized wanting control doesn’t make me a terrible person, I can be in control and at peace with life at the same time.
I still think about dying, and death. Even though I always had known you can’t cheat it, I am no longer consumed by the thought of it. Know the past lives there for us to reflect on, but not to dwell on, and grief doesn’t have an expiration date, but it can bring you some peace in some different ways, even if you don’t recognize it at first. LENS has allowed my brain and body to work together instead of against each other. When one is telling me yes and the other is telling me no, I can feel it now most of the time instead of shutting down. I can adjust myself and my mindset, doing some breathing, meditating or self care, instead of jumping to the worst case scenario, and self sabotaging. When I feel like I’m starting to lose control negatively, and what I apply hasn’t worked, I go in for a tune up.
It’s okay to need help that we can’t give ourselves.
There’s a saying I saw somewhere a while back, and it stuck with me “you gotta understand how reckless I was, to understand how chill I am now’.
That’s me, because of LENS, because of Cassie.
I’m more at peace with my traumas than I have ever been and I can’t imagine where I would be today if I hadn’t started a year ago. I’m not perfect, I never was. I have forgiven myself and made apologies for things I’ve said or done. I have also come to peace with apologies I’ll never receive and I have moved forward differently because of that. I’ve addressed issues that are important to me and listened to issues that are important to others.
I am now able to go to sleep (most nights), kiss my fiancé, and son goodnight, and not worry if I’ll wake up the next day without them here. I’ve never been more heavy on I LOVE YOU, than I am now. I’ve been able to do all of this, and tell you this because I’m not fighting my mind and body every single moment of every single day for a glimpse of’ normalcy’. I’m existing and I’m living at the same time. Before LENS I truly always thought my life would be so incredibly heavy, it’s not. Not when you accept the help and support you’ve always needed, from someone who didn’t even know you, but believed in you anyway.
Cassie wasn’t lying, hope really does live at Renewed Vitality, it will work, if you do.
I love you.
– Ticia Hayden