Acupuncture, the BEST thing that Ever Happened To Me

Acupuncture was, for me, a life-saving adventure. By the time I'd gotten in to see Dedee, who was a RN and trained acupuncturist, I was on the verge of becoming agoraphobic. I was terrified of leaving my home, terrified of staying home. The panic attacks had increased tenfold. It took all my energy, each day, to just exist.

What with a young child with a disability, a dad who was dying, a husband that was a full blown alcoholic (of course the wife is always the last to know) and a daughter who was mimicing my symptoms - symptoms which I thought I was hiding (ha, ha, ha !!) I had to solve the riddle of my life.

I had a resting heart rate of about 175 beats per minute. Doctor said I would be dead before I was 40. I was now 37 and thought that his prediction would surely come to fruition (fyi....I am now 57). Told to relax, given tranquillizers by my M.D. After taking them for a week, and loving the calm, mellow-yellow feeling it left me with, I knew these little white pills were bad news for me. I knew if I kept taking them, I'd be addicted forever. So I decided to take my chances. I threw the pills away.

This time, I did bargain with my God. Told him that I was either going to survive whatever was going on within me WITHOUT MEDICATION.......or I would just die. Period. No discussion. No options.

My acupuncturist worked miracles on me. Those magical needles took away so much of my tension, fear, anxiety, rapid heartbeat. But, after approximately 9 months of treatment she told me there wasn't much more she could do for me. I was still having the occasional panic attack. But I could leave the house. My heart only ocasionally took off on me, leaving me with the thought that "this is it, this is the big one".

I even remember several occasions when I was sure I needed to see a doctor right away due to my heart rate and the constant 'skippin' of beats which was truly unsettling. On those occasions, I would drive to the local hospital and sit in my car in the emergency room parking lot. Sometimes I'd sit for hours, mentally debating with myself the pro's and con's of going in. My biggest fear was actually not dying, but having the doctors take away any of my choices about how, when & where I would die. I thought that if I walked into the hospital, I'd never walk out. So, I never walked in.

So, I struggled with my life, wondering what was in store for me. Constantly ,I worked on different ways to get rid of my panic attacks, trying to figure out WHAT was the underlying cause of my physical/emotional problems. I'd soon be turning 40. I couldn't live like this much longer. The weirdest sensation I was having physically (besides the panic attacks), was that one side of my body was vibrating. Yup, just one side - not the other. It was VERY STRANGE. I never told the doctor. How do you explain that when you wake up in the morning one side of your body was shaking, like jello???

During this time, my son was growing up relatlively healthy, my daughter's stomach aches were now gone. My dad was still alive. My in-laws hated me (why, I'd never learn). But the worse was yet to be presented to me. AND, I still didn't know, hadn't recognized, that a bottle of Vodka was my husband's constant companion. Nor had I ever read anything about psychopaths.

OK, I somehow, in my search for personal healing found the New Age Movement. And, with this new information, I learned to chant, to do all kinds of healing rituals, I even was an apprentice to a woman who was (what I thought at the time) an amazing healer. My sisters, mom, dad, husband, thought I'd gone off the deep end with my talk of angels and aliens (I don't even remember which was more important to me .... angels or aliens!).

Even with all my new found information on how to 'change your reality', how- to improve your life, healing your psychic wounds, etc., my life got worse and worse. At 5'9" tall, I only weighed 116 lbs. I was not slim, I was downright skinny. I could not eat much of anything. Even drinking water gave me indigestion. Well, of course after doing all my healing work and when nothing in my life changed, I thought that I wasn't special, or blessed, or was doing the rituals wrong, or didn't believe hard enough, or..............or.............or. My excuses for my life not working just went on and on. And during all this time, I could not see myself clear of all the muck I was stuck in.

Fortunately, my life got so bad at this point, I almost didn't make it out alive. Well, almost.

~ The Mediator
(to be continued)