Category: Healing From Chronic Pain And Illness

Getting sick with COVID is difficult enough to handle, but being a recipient of anger and blame when another comes down with it can be even more difficult to deal with, especially when it comes from close friends.

When I first began feeling sick, I could barely lift my head off my pillow given all the pain in my head, the fever I was carrying, and the slightly impaired breathing I was enduring. While I awaited my COVID test results in bed during the middle of my first week with it, I received a text from a couple that my partner Chris and I normally hung out with on a regular basis. They asked if we were still getting together that upcoming Saturday. The last time we had seen them was New Year’s Eve when both Chris and I were feeling 100% well. While I hadn’t responded to anyone at that point given how sick I felt, I mustered enough energy to call and let them know I was feeling terrible, waiting for my test results, and probably wouldn’t be seeing them any time soon, at least until I felt better. The next day, I’d receive a number of angry text messages from them saying I had acted irresponsibly and should have let them know of my sickness sooner, especially because one of them was now carrying a fever as well.

I was shocked that the focus from good friends was more about placing anger and blame and not about the status of either my or my partner’s health. It didn’t matter what I said at that point when I tried to defend us, as they seemed hell-bent on continuing to point the finger. I’d receive a few more texts from them the next week letting us know they both officially had contracted Covid and were going to inform their county health department when they called that it was our fault. I was stunned that friends we had spent several years getting to know were more focused on placing anger and blame for getting COVID than on any of our well-being, especially when there wasn’t even any definitive proof how any of us got it.

Nevertheless, during all the days I was sick with COVID, I prayed for their and our well-being and forgave them for the anger and blame placed upon us, realizing that COVID has been making people say and do things they normally wouldn’t do. Personally, I lost my cool a number of times with Chris during my worst days with the virus and had to ask for his forgiveness a few times because of it.

Regardless, the hardest part about all this though was that in the end, our friends opted to end our connection for now rather than get together and reconcile, which is what I was hoping for. The present loss of this friendship has made me realize that what should be most important in this world right now is caring about each other’s well being and not placing anger and blame for why this pandemic is still around or why anyone is still getting it. Anger only begets anger and blame only creates more blame. While Chris and I continue to be responsible mask wearers like we were prior to getting COVID, we never cared about how we got it, only that we and anyone else who came down with it got better.

It’s hard to believe a good friendship with a couple I still care deeply about has ended for now. So, if you can take anything away after reading this today, please don’t place anger or blame upon another over any part of this pandemic, even if you or a loved one should happen to come down with it. Placing anger and blame on anyone isn’t going to help a single person get well from COVID, it’s not going to bring anyone back if they died from this tragic virus either, and it most certainly won’t build lasting bridges between you and those you care about and instead will only tear them apart.

Try focusing instead on sending love and healing into this pandemic-stricken world and also forgive those who may not be acting in ways you feel they should be acting when it comes to how they’re handling this virus. And be rest assured in doing so that our planet will have a far greater chance of fully healing from COVID than if we continue to only focus our energy surrounding it on placing anger and blame as to why it’s still around and why people continue to get sick.

Peace, love light, and joy,
Andrew Arthur Dawson

Recently, I had a very intense conversation with my Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) sponsor about the use of anti-depressants. It arose because I’ve been feeling very sorrowful in life, notably due to my long bout of chronic pain and how far away God has felt because of that. While she advocated for the use of anti-depressants to deal with this, I felt just the opposite. Let me explain.

I’ve been physically depressed before in my life and have been medicated on anti-depressants three separate times because of it. During those periods, I barely found any energy to get out of bed. All I could see on a daily basis was a black hole all around me. It was as if there was no light at all shining upon me, like I was consumed in darkness with no hope to go on. Each time I got to feeling that way, it was always tied to some trauma or some part of my life that I needed to face but wasn’t. The first was when I became sober from alcohol and drugs and needed to accept the fact that I was gay but constantly ran away from doing so. The second was due to my father’s suicide, something I needed to grieve and come to terms with, but refused to for three years. And the third was after I lost a seven-year relationship, my financial stability, and my health itself, where instead of working through those things, I delved into addictive behaviors to numb myself from feeling any of it. In each of these cases, avoiding what I needed to work on, which was essentially feeling the pain and emotions from the traumas themselves, led me straight into a bout of severe physical depression that required an anti-depressant to stabilize. Once I faced each of them though and came to a healing place with it, I developed enough strength that didn’t require the use of an anti-depressant anymore.

Presently, the sorrow I’m feeling, that I spoke to my AA sponsor about, is not related to something I’m avoiding facing. Ironically, it’s the exact opposite. The path to healing for my present sorrow is one where I absolutely need to sit in my sorrow and feel all of it in its entirety, rather than take something that might prevent myself from achieving that. Taking an anti-depressant would just numb me from getting to the source of what this sorrow is about. Sitting through it though, without getting into addictive behaviors and without taking an anti-depressant, has been extremely challenging, especially due to the addictive brain I have, one that I’ve trained for years to constantly seek highs and avoid lows. Sadly, I spent the better part of the past three years not sitting with this sorrow and instead falling slowly back into old addictive patterns to cope. I think it was only a matter of time before I would have spiraled out of control into another bout of severe physical depression, one that would have required the use of anti-depressants again. Thankfully, I’ve taken immediate steps to prevent that from happening by eliminating the unhealthy behaviors I was doing to numb myself from feeling what I need to feel.

While my sponsor totally advocates the use of anti-depressants for any type of depression a person may be feeling, including the deep sorrow I spoke of to her, I’ve come to accept there is a time and place for the usage of these type of medications, but this not being one of them. I’m not in a place of total darkness where I’m completely shut down and immobile. Rather, I’m in a place of sorrow over the actions I’ve lived. My sorrow is about how much of my life I threw away to things that were never going to fill my soul and it’s about the painful healing my body continues to go through because of those actions. I believe my sorrow will eventually pass though by continuing to sit with it, by facing it head on, and by talking about it, but not by living in addictive behaviors or by taking an anti-depressant, as either will lead me to simply not care about it at all, which is of course is the opposite of what needs to happen.

This path of healing isn’t easy. It means facing oneself in all one’s feelings and sitting uncomfortably in them for however long it takes, something a trained addict brain like mine despises. But as they say in recovery, to heal from anything, one must feel and deal with it first. While indeed anti-depressants may be important to use when going through the healing of deep-seated traumas, especially when one has run from them for a long period of time like I did, facing my present sorrow without them and without any addictive behaviors to cope is precisely what I need to do to heal and draw closer to God.

One of the hardest lessons I’ve come to learn in life is that the very path to feeling closer to God, is not one where I’ve numbed myself from feeling the pain and sorrows of life. Rather, it’s one where I felt them in their entirety and sought God through each of those difficult moments, because in doing so, it’s always eventually led me to the place of healing and peace I sought.

Peace, love, light, and joy,
Andrew Arthur Dawson

(NOTE: This is only my personal experience and opinion on the subject. Please always consult the appropriate professionals before making any decisions surrounding your medication.)

I just spent the better part of an hour trying to compose a new blog entry that ended up feeling way too morbid and depressing. So, I deleted it, but here’s the extremely brief summation. I’m tired of physically hurting and I’m tired of never feeling peace and joy no matter how hard I try to move beyond this pain.

I honestly wish I found Biblical scripture comforting anymore, but I don’t. There was a time I used to, when I hadn’t suffered for as many years as I have now. Sadly, I no longer find the passages or stories from the Bible comforting anymore, especially after contracting COVID, which seems to have taken every bit of steam I had left in me that had been helping me to keep going.

Am I going through some dark night of the soul? I don’t know. I used to go through moments of this from time to time, but still had plenty of positive and uplifting experiences intermixed throughout. But, now every day feels gray and poses greater and greater challenges to keep going and to keep believing that God is there and still has a better plan for me than this.

I keep on practicing my gratitude and my daily spiritual routines every single day, hoping it’s all helping me somehow still. And I continue to accept my conditions in life as best as I can, putting one foot forward in front of the other each day I continue to remain alive. But, I’m weary. And yet, I still cling to some shard of faith, even when it often feels like there’s no reason to have any of that anymore.

I frequently find myself wondering lately if my evangelical friends would still be praising Christ as they do, if they had suffered for years with no answers like I have. As I’ve said before in some of my previous writings, it’s so easy to have faith in God when you’re still able to function somewhat normally in your body, when your body remains healthy. But when the very vessel you are forced to live in totally feels like it betrays you, and doesn’t respond anymore like it once did, when all efforts to make it better get thwarted, and many years pass by like this, it’s hard to see God through a positive set of eyes, and continue to believe He’s an all-loving, all-caring, type of being.

Yet, I still cling to my cross. Literally. I take it off my wall in my bedroom every morning and hold it often in tears. Begging God for answers, even though none have come thus far surrounding my health. I still love God, even though I question whether God still loves me. I still shout out to God, even though it seems like God remains on total radio silence with me. And I still believe somewhere deep within me that God isn’t going to leave me like this and that I will be restored to a healthier mind and body one day in this life.

I know many have told me that the longevity of my health issues may say otherwise with what God’s plan is for me. Well, I still continue to believe otherwise, even after all this time. It may indeed be that I only have a mustard seed of faith left in that and in God, but somehow, I think it’s this type of faith that God looks for in us. And that alone is enough at least for today for me to keep going, for one more day…as I continue to pray for a brighter day to come…

Peace, love, light, and joy,
Andrew Arthur Dawson