Like I said…I was dealt the cancer card on top of a burn-out, but let me give you guys a little bit of background information:
Back in June 2016 things really started to fall apart for me and I had to admit that even I wasn’t strong enough to go on like this. It had been a long time coming though. Since my family had been ridden with trauma of all kinds in both bloodlines, it would’ve been a wonderful surprise if my childhood hadn’t been.
Each of my parent’s upbringing involved some great challenges, neither limited, but both including parent(s) with mental/personality disorders. Unfortunately for my mom and my siblings & I, those disorders can be hereditary and that’s where the fun started for me…
As it turns out, my father was cursed with Borderline & Narcissistic Personality Disorder (BPD (not to be confused with BDP, Boogie Down Productions) & NPD) and it resulted in sexual & psychological abuse. This particular combination of disorders is a real nasty one & made my mother’s life a living hell. She only just started noticing things were off when she was pregnant with my brother. Back when they were dating, got married & had my sister he had been The Master Charmer, but now he transitioned into The Master Manipulator. Only to become The Master Gaslighter by the time my mom was pregnant with me. I’ll save the details for my book or for whenever I feel like sharing them. So for now this’ll do. They ended up divorcing when I was 8, but for me this did not represent relief of any kind. Things always get worse before they get better, right?!
Although I had always been very much aware of things being off in my family it didn’t mean I was able to cope with it in a healthy manner. But who was there to show me how? My mom was doing the best she could, trying (and succeeding) to at least do better than her parents. But she had never known unconditional love, she never learned how to love herself. So what she did was all she was able to & so the fall out was inevitable. And the awareness also didn’t mean I knew how bad it actually was.
In short: it got ugly. Social workers, psychologists & haptotherapists ( I believe they only exist in The Netherlands & Belgium; simply put it’s finding energy blocks in your body through touch, allowing the emotions to be felt in that safe space and thus letting them go) were regular companions in my life, but I kept feeling like I wasn’t really me, myself, Renate… Although there were a couple of times where I made a valliant effort to be me, live my life (e.g.: when my stepfather had passed away after suffering from Alzheimer’s disease); I did not succeed. Apparently there were still some lessons to be learned. And in hindsight there definately were. You only get what you’re able to bare, right?! Damn those broad shoulders! Hahaha!!
Part of me always knew certain things were supposed to go the way they did, that’s probably why I went on for as long as I did before I crashed & burned… In the end of June 2016 I finally did & I ended up at home, having regular sessions with a new haptotherapist, trying to fit my pieces back together the way they were before the world (the use of the words world & his are intentional; I am not talking about Mother Earth, but about society) got his hands on me. I considered this to be the ultimate opportunity to finally do it right, to make sure I really cleaned house. I was determent on finding & resolving every last bit of trauma, so I could at last discover the person hidden underneath all that sh*t.
It was pretty intens & it got even more difficult because my employer & my superior apparently didn’t have a clue how to deal with the situation. So the re-integration process added insult to injury in my case and I really needed a break. Just to get away from all the chatter, the opinions, the expectations, the misplaced advice… What better way to get to know yourself than around people who don’t know you?! And that’s what led me to Hoi An in May of 2017 (I had been there for a couple of days back in 2009) for 3 weeks of…..whatever I felt like.
I had such a blast, met so many beautiful souls, I was in love… With Hoi An that is. Back home I started to make plans to save up & do what I had already forseen as a 10 year old (a friend of mine reminded me of this), move to a different country. But first I had to be able to work fulltime again, so I could find another job & quit the old one. I really thought I would be able to do it, especially with my new found drive, but the universe had different plans. I got appointed a coach to help me with the re-integration process and he was great, but certain developments on the shopfloor ( I was a storemanager at a ladies’ clothing & shoestore) made it near impossible for me to make progress in my recovery.
I was really starting to freak out when, after a year, finally it was time for the work capacity assessment and things started to look up again. The employment expert was of the opinion that I would recover a hell of a lot faster if my employer & I would say our goodbyes. And I couldn’t have agreed more! An agreement would be drawn up & a very heavy weight had been lifted of my shoulders… You remember them? Those broad shoulders that were made to carry heavy loads?
Well, I’d had these white patches on my tongue for some months by then and they hadn’t really been cause for concern, because I thought they were like aphtous lesions. But a while after that I discovered some kind of groove on the left side of my tongue. Not that that worried me at first, I just thought it was caused by the miserable state of my immune system, like the white lesions. After all, I was burned out, had been dealing with HPV and have a quite severe pollen allergy… But on the nights of August 23 & 24 the pain I had been feeling locally, got exponentionally worse and spread to my jaw, ear & throat.
The morning of Friday the 25th of August I knew. I had tonguecancer. Better call the doctor…”Monday? Sure. May I ask what it concerns? Yeah sure, I think I have tonguecancer. But we’re not going to let you wait untill after the weekend, you’re coming this afternoon! Ok.” He thought along the same lines as I did at first. He thought it was a fungus, wreaking havoc on my tongue, untill he saw it. He didn’t say it was cancer, but he’d never seen anything like it & made sure I got to see an ENT specialist on Monday morning. Again I didn’t really get a clear diagnostic, but he did say I should take into account that it was possibly malignant & he made sure I would spend the next day(s) at the centre for head & neck oncology at our academic hospital, getting all kinds of exams, x rays, scans…
I know this all sounds pretty detached, but I don’t think that was the case. I think it was more a state of acquiescence. And survival mode was already working full throttle I guess. I cried, I cried a lot, but at the same time I was pretty pragmatic & zen about the whole thing. I never once asked ‘why me’ and it didn’t take me long to say I probably needed this to be able to peel back every last layer of false programming & unhealthy coping meganisms to uncover my true essence.
Now, I had the idea to make this into a recap of what I wrote on my former page, but as you might suspect, that’s just not going to work. I’m just to darn profuse in offering you insight into my back story. What I will do for the people who have been following me on my first page, is to date the posts manually. This way you can just pick up where you left off.
That’s it then, I guess… I hope my endeavors bring you something; whether it’s just entertainment or a more profound effect like inspiration, comfort or a new perspective on life. And if they do, don’t hog the experience, but share my blog. I want to thank you all for connecting with me, I feel grateful & blessed and appreciate each & every one of you! We are one! So don’t be a stranger and contact me here or via Instagram with your comments & questions. Let me know if there is something you’d like me to talk about!
Love & light, Renate.
