My Reclamation Started In The Emergency Room
Emergency rooms are strange places.
You could be coming in with a jammed thumb or a nail in your foot or with a limb on ice.
You could be terrified of what could be happening or simply covering your bases, injury wise.
You could be running on fear-induced adrenaline or patiently counting the minutes till it’s your turn.
And depending on where you fall on the ER spectrum of experiences, spending any amount of time in the emergency room allows a certain kind of contemplation.
“Is this serious?” “What will the rest of the week look like, I’ve got stuff to do?” “How did this happen?” “How bad could it be?” “What happens if….”
The experience is a pit stop between what was & what’s about to be, a point in time that can go a whole bunch of different ways.
But if you’re me, you’re not contemplating those questions.
If you’re me, you’re lying on a bed in a cubicle of a busy ER convinced you’re having a heart attack at the age of 40 & you’re angry. You’re angry at the whole world, you’re angry at God, you’re angry at life.
If you’re me, you realize, years later, that that ER visit was the tipping of a domino that desperately needed to fall.
The Physical Aftermath of Grief
This part of the story can be brief because I trust that you, dear reader, can quickly gather where I was mentally & emotionally as I laid in that hospital bed.
One week after my 40th birthday, I took my mom to the ER. She was 69, had suffered from severe rheumatoid arthritis for more than 25 years, and she was in terrible pain.
What we thought was going to be a quick overnight in the hospital to get her pain under control, turned into a month long stay where she started having seizures, went into a coma, & eventually passed away on June 30th, 2022.
I had been 40 for one month & was now an orphan (my dad died when I was 19) and the realization that I was the highest tier of family my brothers left, left me terrified.
(I realize it’s dramatic to use the term “orphan” here but as the child of a mother who mother’d up until the end, the loss felt truly untethering. For some of us, no matter how old we get, if we are being cared for in any way by a parent, the loss of that parent is truly life altering.)
In the weeks following her death - I honestly don’t remember much of it - I did my best to return to my routine of mom, wife, business owner, but the grief was so profound that I started having panic attacks.
And it was just that, they said. It was a panic attack that had landed me in the emergency room late one night about 2 months after my mom died.
But what it actually was…
In the weeks following my ER visit, and at the suggestion of my therapist, I decided to try a more somatic approach to healing.
I made an appointment with an acupuncturist that friends had raved about & she set me on a path of not just healing, but re-learning everything I knew about how the body, brain, & soul can either hold you hostage, or be your greatest ally.
She used needling techniques that helped me sleep better.
She focused on points that calmed my nervous system.
She worked through digestive issues that was causing further inflammation in my body & after a frustrating visit with my mom’s rheumatologist (I figured R.A was in my future too so I wanted to get ahead of it) she encouraged me to see a Functional Medicine doctor.
That doctor showed me a way of understanding & caring for my body that was unlike anything I’d ever known. She viewed me as a whole - body, mind, spirit - & gave me the kind of support I desperately needed.
She also diagnosed me with Lupus & we then determined that what had sent me to the ER months before wasn’t a panic attack, it was a Lupus flare brought on by severe stress.
My cortisol was through the roof, my body was functioning like a washing machine in its spin cycle but going the wrong way and this autoimmune disease that I didn’t even know I had, had reacted to my grief.
Where the work began…
Finding out that I had Lupus was a relief, actually. I was able to connect so many dots, make sense of so many things that I had thought were random & separate.
My doctor put my on a regime of supplements meant to bring my systems back into alignment & I physically started to feel better. So then, I knew it was time to deal with my brain & heart.
My brilliant therapist, & EMDR therapy, have been the architect, structural engineer, & construction crew for my reclamation.
In the years since my mom died, I have uncovered memories, truths, & long held, deeply seeded beliefs that kept me firmly planted in the roles I had always accepted were mine -obedient daughter, well mannered lady, quiet & helpful kid, accommodating friend, faithful Catholic, don’t-rock-the-boat woman.
But upon further inspection, none of these roles were ones I would have chosen for myself.
None of these roles were ones I felt particularly good at.
None of these roles felt comfortable.
Mostly they felt like the jeans from high school that your postpartum body is just too differently shaped to fit into anymore - you can get them on & you know them well but damn, you can’t even sit down comfortably.
The dismantling of those beliefs, the discovering of my truths, the letting go of all the shit tied to them, that was where my reclamation started.
This, my darling reader, is simply the context for what came next.
Because what came next was like taking a hot knife to my identity & then immediately putting her on a weight lifting routine to build strength.
It was awful, it was painful, it was ugly, but it all had to happen.
And it all started in the emergency room - mine or my mom’s, doesn’t matter - that liminal place where the old me & the new me stood shoulder to shoulder, waiting to see who was going to take the next steps forward.
Welcome to the story behind ‘In Her Reclamation Era’. This diary is the reason why, the catalyst for, & the paved path that led me to this time & space with you.
Meet Katie
