At some point into the ‘rescue’ mission, I realised that my original timespan of three years was not going to be met. Not ‘normal’ in three years. The dawning of the realisation that possibly never ‘normal’. The final acceptance of her perfection, as my perfect daughter. Not like anyone else’s, as I was not anyone else. I was living a different life, not always necessarily pleasant or calm for my personality and earthly desires.
Skye often went on what I called her ‘integrative holidays from life”. Meaning – she is taking time out to decide whether to keep on going, or to opt out. Usually she did this in a dramatic way. Stopping eating altogether. Radically ill. On a drip in hospital. Coasting in neutral gear, hibernation mode – very difficult to observe, as her mother holding a desired outcome of well and “normal”.
After each of these, she changed. Physically, as a naturopath I could watch her changes in a detached diagnostic manner. Her irises gradually went from black, through very, very dark brown, to where I could finally see the immense number of nerve rings. The naturopathic concepts of going back through ‘disease’ seemed to be so if we looked at the progression in her eyes. She gradually became less autistic. Very slowly.
Her Mother’s Story
I started giving her on powdered Chinese herbs in adult quantities., three times daily, mixed with ripe banana for palatability. She had to have this to eat. Thankfully she was obsessed with eating. The previous dance of attempting to align normal body functions became less intense as they worked their magic. There became a very gradual “un-misting of her consciousness”. Slowly a spark of possibly someone present looking out through her eyes. The dawning of more than blankness in her expression. An awakening. An occasional reprieve from the chaos and the horror of the unusual that had re-framed our new parameters of ‘normal’, in living with her.
I learnt to watch her suffering, her misery, her frustration, her anger, her terror, her withdrawal, and her incredibly tentative glimpses of reaching out, of opening her barriers, her attempts enough to try again – at her speed. It was her journey. Her path.
I had no idea what it was that she had to shift through, before she could get to where everyone else took as a right, as a part of being human. I did find that I could guide, I could support, but that I could not force the process. Where I wanted her to go, what I wanted her to be was not necessarily where she WAS to be.
I could then draw a parallel in my old life (at that point there I was early thirties) as a teacher and practitioner of acupuncture. As I had learnt through my life to date, the easiest path is often the one that looked the hardest. That which I resisted the most usually ended up being the answer to many apparent problems. That by stopping and seeing that which I would expend the greatest amount of energy avoiding, was often the short cut. If I just had the wit to see.
In this present life, when people walk in my door wanting me to rid them of some pesky problem, to ‘fix’ something that feels uncomfortable, I often wonder if they really know just what it is that they may also move, if they allow themselves the space, like I learnt to with my daugher.
To see that more is often achieved by allowing the dis-ease, the discomfort and the pain attached to a belief system, to remain – to change the focus and instead – to let go of the belief system. To work on the ‘self’ that allows the ‘problem’ to be there, rather than be forever distracted by the results of self eating, drinking, being who self thinks self is.
