Tired

I’m tired of censoring myself, of thinking of things to say but being too shy to let the words out, even now.

I’m tired of being deeply closeted about the neurodiversity of my brain.

My feathers are ruffled from being hidden so long, they long to stretch and soar.

I’m tired of trying hard to act like I’m not trying hard.

I’m tired of prioritizing everybody else above myself.

I’m tired of not giving myself time to read library books before they are due.

I’m tired of knowing what changes to make to improve my nutrition and yet changing nothing, as processed foods pour into my body daily, depleting my health in ways both seen and unseen.

I’m tired of feeling like I look even more tired than I feel.

I’m tired of my old habit of smiling constantly so that other people won’t feel threatened by me.

I’m tired of taking other people’s shit.

I’m tired of listening without returning the favor of speaking.

I know the road is both long and short, but I want it to be more joyful and less exhausting.

I’m ready to change my life because if I don’t, no one will do it for me.

The calvary may not be coming, but at last my self love has come along.

May I blaze a new trail in considering my own wants and needs, gathering energy with each step.

Song in My Heart

I have a song in my heart

I sing it when we are apart

When you are near

I am silenced by fear

I want to sing you my song

What happens to my voice

Is it even a choice

I want to believe that I am free

All I can do is try to sing to you

I have a song in my heart

A song like the wind that blows clouds apart

The sun shines for all

Remember this next time your heart falls

You have a song in your heart

You’ve had it from the start

You have a song that beats all day long

In the quiet of the night you can hear it

If you listen to the song in your heart

I feel the rhythm in all

Neuroscience Love

How I’d love to go walking

Through the orchard of your mind

To behold fertile neurons branching ever more intricately

In an arboretum lushly laden with sweet serotonin

My fingers search restlessly for the roots of your dopamine

My tongue drowns itself craving your acetylcholine

I long to climb your axons and shake ripe neurotransmitters

From the delicate tips of your dendritic branches

I ache to see your potential in action

To be blinded by the searing speed of your electric signal

As it sparks from node to node

To be swallowed by the violent beauty

Of vesicles fusing with your pre-synaptic membrane

How I wish to be one of your post-synaptic neurons

So that I may feel flooded by your molecules

In the electric throes of neuronal excitation

I hyperpolarize when you are near

Gripped by GABA, I am mesmerized

I’m living to see behind your eyes

Depolarize me anytime

Workaholic

I went into medicine partly due to heartbreak

The exhaustive training of medical school and residency was a welcome albeit ineffective distraction from my sorrow and loneliness

24-hour shifts are a convenient justification for not keeping in touch with loved ones

Even though the real excuse is my social anxiety and sense of inadequacy

Living within hospital walls, I suspect that I am not the only physician who became a medical doctor to try to forget unrequited love, to escape the world of human relationships

My older colleagues work far more than they need to to make ends meet, far more than any reasonable person would work in a week

Who needs friends or feelings when you have patients and science?

Our skin grows pale under fluorescent lights

Our vision becomes shortsighted as the screens stare unblinkingly

Our hearts forget how to feel carefree

Our muscles atrophy as our brains hypertrophy

Our minds become boxed in with facts, our mental filing cabinets overflow

I am a recovering workaholic working alongside workaholics who do not appear to be in recovery

Perhaps they suspect the same of me

Heads down in the trenches, none of us can know another’s heart

We can only know our own heart, if we listen

We carefully administer medications, surgeries and therapies

We measure progress in numerical metrics of lab values, calculated scores and vital signs

We arrive early and stay late

We work day and night without a break

We always have too much on our plates

We deprive ourselves of sleep, fresh air and food

We know why we have irritable moods

Practicing medicine is an unhealthy, imbalanced lifestyle and we know it

We can only ever heal ourselves

I’m ready to show it

I am finally healing my broken heart

I found that I had to begin at the start

Childhood wounds tangle and bloom

Trauma begets trauma until we change our thoughts, words and actions

Breaking old patterns even as we hold traction

I am love itself, I am the source of what I sought

My cup overflows, it was not all for naught

Alice in Recoveryland

Alice had her heart broken

When she was quite small

And healing a broken heart

Isn’t easy at all

So she drank

To forget it all

But she couldn’t forget,

Even when she felt tall

In fact, the more she drank

The more she felt like she was falling

And falling…

Until- kerplunk!

She hit rock bottom, landed on her badunk

She had no where to go but up

But getting up is hard when you are on your badunk

Though Alice was hurting, she was also incredibly strong

So she climbed and she climbed, though her journey was long

To this day, she is climbing still

She is higher than she ever felt when she was looking out over windowsills

In towers guarded by grumpy ogreish men

Alice is a survivor, and she’d survive it all again

Her heart may have been broken,

But it never stopped beating

Though the sweetness of love was fleeting

And the bitter years of sadness and tears

Left a sting on her cheek and made her feel meek

She is finding her true voice

She is exercising her choice

To express herself in this world

Hers is the story of one small girl

Who grew into womanhood

The only way she could

Smoking this, drinking that

Sleeping with men wearing mad hats

Alice is every woman, in a way

Doing her best to recover from her past today

Building herself a better future

Re-writing her fairy tale

After giving so many men happy endings

She is creating a happy ending for herself

Filled with love, hope, and peace

Anxiety

Anxiety, my oldest companion, always by my side

Anxiety

Ball of wirey grey string inside me

Buzzing like an agitated hornet’s nest, threatened and angry

Tangling, strangling, suffocating

Drowning me under dark metal walls rising

Closing in under the pressure of the shadow mountains of never enough

This shifting, terrifying scenery is my home

My neurobiological foundation was not built on safety or security

My mind was melded in the hellfire of anxiety

Flames of self-doubt licking at my heels

Constantly threatening to burn me to the bone

Venomous teeth bared,

My serpent of self-doubt is poised

Ready to strike

That’s how I get through the night

Jaw clenched tight, insomnia punctuated by nightmares

In a lucid dream I fly

In my many travels, I learn a thing or two

I understand now

That my anxiety is my servant,

Trying to protect me

From the many and varied perceived threats

Of my childhood and my adulthood

I breathe in deep

Let my tea steep

Beyond the dragoness serpent, the ring of fire, the charred walls, the mountains holding the howling winds of loneliness,

I see beyond all these horrors

With each breath

A bit of sunshine blue shines through

That bright and buoyant sight

That glimpse of the outside, of a new approach to life

Is all I need

To find peace

To hold hope

To savor the long years of hard suffering, mucking through mud

only to realize that my heart is a lotus blossom of healing

I am kneeling in humble gratitude

With each breath,

My serpent uncoils and I see her beauty

My flames simmer down

The earth beneath me settles and breathes with me

My walls fall, overcome by vines

Even my massive mountains of worry breathe,

Lush with Spring

Thank you for your service, anxiety

You can take a break from protecting me

This moment does not have to be a struggle

In an instant, ease breaks through

I breathe and bow to you, anxiety

Labels

I was labeled cute

I was labeled sweet

I was labeled shy

My anxiety and depression went unrecognized, intentionally overlooked by those with the power to help me when I was a child. My social anxiety drove me to act as anyone but myself.

My parents had not accepted and confronted their own anxiety and depression, and they trained me to follow their approach to life: suppress your feelings, be only what others want you to be.

I was labeled smart.

I was labeled hard working.

I was responsible.

For as long as I can remember, I’ve carried the weight of the world on my shoulders. I took responsibility for everyone else’s feelings. I took care of other children when I was still a child myself.

I was labeled a slut and a tramp by teenage girls.

I was labeled a tease by teenage boys.

I didn’t know how to say no, I didn’t know how to not lose myself in the desires of others.

Sometimes I was glad for the non-verbal language of physical affection, although I was just as incompetent at saying ‘no’ physically as I was verbally.

I was labeled an escort, a call girl, though I was just trying to make ends meet, girl.

I was labeled a graduate, with latin honors.

Though I worked as a prostitute, survived unnumbered abusive relationships, including the abusive relationship with myself, now they call me doctor.

What my patients don’t know is how much I’m still learning everyday- learning how to take care of myself as I ask them to take care of themselves.

In my daily practice of being my best self, I practice un-labeling through non-judgement.

Labels limit our minds.

Labels snap a stagnant picture from the moving scene, robbing us of the limitless possibilities of the present.

My Yoga Teacher

My yoga teacher said

May you live in the heart
May you light up the dark
May you live in the now
May you flow with the Tao
May you bless up
And never come down

My yoga teacher said,
‘Our generation is the smartest one yet, we have all the information we could ever need at our fingertips, yet we still aren’t enlightened- we can’t take 3 steps without melting down’.

True, however:

What I wanted to say to my yoga teacher after class, but didn’t due to my lingering shyness was that we are in the process of becoming enlightened, and yoga teachers are an important part of the sacred process of enlightening others, whether they realize it or not:

One by one, enlightened people share their light with others
As if passing a flame from candle to candle
The glow grows without end, multiplying infinitely.

Sharing our inner light with our fellow beings does not diminish our own glow, but builds a safety net in case our own flame is temporarily blown out- we have a friendly neighbor with a bright source to rekindle us again.

Because we have paid it forward, we have propagated a culture of generosity and abundance.

Let your light shine.

Yoga is a key part of my healing journey. It has changed my relationship with myself and with the world.

To my yoga teacher, I bow in deep gratitude for how they share their light with the world.

To all teachers everywhere across time and space; thank you, and namaste.