Should I Bother Coming Out of the Closet?

I don't know when it happened.

As a writer, this is quite embarrassing. I think I'm a hippie. I mean, at least the stereotyped version of it...minus the illegal drugs.

I don't know what it happened, but this is as close to coming out of the closet that I'm probably ever going to get. I'm coming out to say, I think I'm a hippie. I don't know. Keep reading.

But, this has led me also feel like a conspiracy theorist. I'm starting to believe everyone out there has been misled, misdiagnosed, and misunderstood. And because I am currently on the upside of what has seemed like an endless downhill road, I just want to share it with everyone. But, come on, that's just plain scary. I grew up with an evangelical mother in an evangelic church, I'm definitely worn out on the preaching and "do this and you'll get this" operation. So I'm just going to share.

Which leaves me with this blog. This is the quietest way I know how to "come out".

So, while I don't typically list this as public knowledge, I will share it just this once (and perhaps even take this blog down after it's had its chance to run).

I have a number of health issues.

So here's what I face/faced on a daily basis:
Sciatica - This is basically just a set of symptoms. It encompasses lower back pain that at time can run down into the upper thigh. It's got a lot to do with nerves and pinching. It hurts. Some days it really hurts.
PTSD - Post traumatic stress disorder, became more well known after the Vietnam War. I don't like talking about this because I'm still at a point where it makes me feel a bit uncomfortable. But, I will say that it's kind of like having to be forced to relive the most terrifying parts of your life over... and over...and over... and over...
Ovarian Cysts - These are pain. When mine rupture, they bleed all over my stomach.
Undiagnosed - When there's a change in the barometric pressure the insides of my knee caps feel like they are going to explode (I have no idea what this is called, some say it's rheumatoid arthritis).

So, let me paint a picture for you. On good days, my ovaries throbbed with an occasional sharp tinge of pain, and my lower back could be appeased with 800 milligrams of ibuprofen. On bad days.... I'd end up in the ER getting shots of morphine. Granted, the worst days only come 2-4 times a year. But, most of the time, my back is in such bad condition, I can't be in an upright position. You'd find me instead, on the floor with my feet elevated, a heating pad on my gut, and movies playing or reading a book. I was lucky if I could concentrate long enough to read.

And the doctors... OOOOoooohhh, the DOCTORS! They'd look at me like some "little woman" and tell me that I needed to get over these "cramps". Thank God for nurses (female, which the industry is still dominated by). The therapists I'd been to were even worse. Most of them, well all of them except the last one, missed the PTSD. Instead, all my symptoms were divvied out into separate diagnoses... IE borderline personality disorder, depression, and the general anxiety disorder. (Treatments for these didn't work... I wonder why... hmm...) Grr.

In any case, my days were spent generally very angry. I couldn't escape the pain. So, I'd angrily try to get the work that needs doing done. But, still I got behind regularly leaving tons of mess for me to clean up on the occasional "good days". This is a daunting task. This was an unbearable task.

As a result, a few years ago, after a night of crying pathetically in pain, flashbacks streaming incessantly through my head, I stomped into a bookstore and looked at meditation CD's. There is a type of unceasing pain that will drive you to insanity, and I was there. I had reached my breaking point. I didn't care what anyone else thought of me. I'd try anything. Even if I had a preconceived notion that meditation was for crazy people.

I threw myself headfirst into the world of meditation. If nothing else, it was a way to make sure I didn't lose my sanity during a fit of pain. And, so a few years past with that. Then, this last November, I had another cyst rupture. I ended up in the ER, crying and screaming. For almost three months afterwards, I didn't do anything. Then, finally I got tired of laying around and worked a million times harder to control my body despite the pain through meditation. Then, I resumed my typical regime of doing whatever I could until the pain got to be too much. Needless to say, I have a high threshold for pain and it has been ever growing.

But, I still couldn't help but thinking that there had to be something better than just coping! So, in another desperate torrent, much like the one that found me stomping off to buy mediation CD's, I start researching...gasp... alternative healing methods. And suddenly, I find myself where I am now.

I drink various concoctions of apple cider vinegar twice daily, and it is gross. I drink apple cider vinegar. Did you hear me? To me, this is right on par with eating chocolate cake in order to lose weight. It just sounds ridiculous. I can't help it. I think it's nuts. But, it works.

At about the same time, I started trying my hand at yoga. No, not the super impressive circus contortionist kind, nor the kind that is intended to make me look like a goddess in a bikini. I'm talking about the kind that is meditative and focused on helping my back. It's more or less meditation combined with good stretching.

So here I am, meditating, drinking apple cider vinegar, and doing yoga. Oh, and after all my PTSD experience, I try to approach people with patience and kindness. So, yes, I'm all about the love, too.

But, you know what makes this funny... at least to me? I still think it's nuts.

I'm still not sure I want everyone knowing how jaded I am towards average doctors or how jaded I am towards the organized religion that never led me toward a path of alternative solutions.

And I guess that's what happens. As people, we endure something long enough and with enough pain that we become jaded. My problem lies before all this happened, I produced a judgement against the hippie (peace, love, and happiness) cliche. Maybe it was because I never thought it was possible. Maybe it was because I was in a state where those ideals could never exist. But now, I've made them exist.

I'm not perfect. I still get entirely out of whack some days. Some days my PTSD gets the better of me. Sometimes, there's not a yoga class suited for my needs when I need it. Some days, I cannot tolerate the idea of drinking that awful apple cider vinegar.

I wonder, what have I become? Am I now that crazy hippie stereotype I always laughed at and disregarded?

And that is when I return to my keyboard, to my characters, and to my writing. Maybe the answers are there. My books are my escape, and yet are the way I stay grounded. I send this query out to the universe, out to the world... I would love your input, your stories. Should I accept that I am doomed to become a label? Is that something I should learn to accept? And why, why am I so afraid to acknowledge that I'm different? Should I even bother coming out of my closet?