For most of May I dealt with autoimmune flare-ups as my body tried so hard to fight a head cold that just didn’t want to leave. My body was fighting germs as much as it could, but in it’s fight mode, it started going overboard and attacked my good cells as well. All together, the symptoms did not stop me from doing all the things I wanted to do, but the main symptom of fighting these issues was exhaustion. I’m so happy that my body has recovered from all that!
This past week I had 3 really great medical appointments that gave me clean bills of health. A specialist that I started seeing over a year ago told me there were no existing concerns and I left so fast that, I think I may have left skid marks in the hallway from my quick getaway.
This past month, the topic of community has been on my mind and I thought about how it is, living in community with a healing heart and an orphan heart. I thought about how my orphan heart had emotional autoimmune issues when attempting to live in community in the past.
Even with my introverted nature, I believe that we are all created for connection. But when you live with an orphan heart autoimmune condition, you sometimes attack the good instead of the bad without even knowing it.
When my whole identity was orphan, it was difficult to find a way to live in community connected to others. Convinced that I was not loved, connecting for my orphan heart had lots of obstacles. In it’s autoimmune ways, my orphan heart was really good at sabotaging the very relationships that I longed for.
One of the great tools of sabotage that I use to frequently utilize was the tool of comparison. Because my inner core already felt “not good enough”, comparison was a natural reaction and addiction. Words would flow with comparison and accusations would easily stream from that flow. In my orphan victim nature, I couldn’t recognize my deep desire for a best friend or a close group of friends, in the midst of accusing others of being “cliquey”.
I would show up in my community, being a helper/fixer/doer, trying to earn my worth for connection, but felt completely disconnected. The irony of being present in a room full of people, but feeling extreme loneliness with disconnection, was a constant in that season for me.
It wasn’t until I sought healing, advice, couseling and growth, that I realized the only way to stop my own sabotage was to acknowledge that I was attacking good and making myself a victim in community. I don’t really know how to explain how I battled not feeling loved and lovable for so long, just yet, but once my heart stopped seeking validation for worth in others, I started being able to connect on a deeper level and developed healthy relationships.
I won’t claim that I’ve had success in all my relationships since, but this realization helped me let go, and not to try so hard when some relationships were not organic or for a particular season of my life. Even if people I wanted connection with, did not desire connection with me, it did not define me. I no longer thought the friendship grass was greener on the other side, but I recognized, my friendship grass would be greener if I watered/nurtured the healthy ones, in the right season. There was a shift from attacking the good, to fighting for the healthy things.
Autoimmune is not logical in our design, physically or emotionally. Connection is hard, but worth fighting for.