Category: Healing From Chronic Pain And Illness

Dear Neighbors,

I know many of you may not understand why I am the way I am. I’m sure many of you at times have probably thought I’m mentally ill because I’m outside all the time picking up debris, keeping my yard, a few others, and the street as well, clean. You may even think how absurd it is when I’m outside at times like 1am, flashlight in hand, picking up leaves. There’s a good chance some of you have even labeled me as OCD and judged I need medication, a job, or both. I’m quite sure some have even found my outdoor habits annoying at times, but can any of you really say you truly know why I am the way I am? This is why I decided to share those reasons with you here today.

My life feels very upside-down these days and has for a good while. It’s been at least four years now since I experienced any real happiness or joy. Living with chronic pain can do that to a human being, especially when you never get a break from it, even more so when no medication or any over-the-counter thing does any good except give plenty of negative side effects. For as much as I’ve wanted to go that natural route by using medical marijuana or some other THC-related coping mechanism, I haven’t because I’m a hard-core addict, who knows himself so well that if it gave me any relief, I’d start consuming as much of it as I could, becoming an active addict all over again. So, I do my best to cope with my painful state, fighting to not follow in my parent’s footsteps who both took their own lives, fighting to not relapse, and fighting to believe that there’s something Greater out there still guiding me through all this darkness.

Every day I fight to live, to overcome a psychiatrist’s warning I received many years ago, who told me I had a 60 percent chance of taking my life due to all the tragedies I’ve been through. What gives me purpose and helps me to keep going are two things, one you regularly see and one you don’t. The one you don’t is the volunteer recovery work I do in the addiction realm, while the one you do is my work outside.

Doing my work outside as obsessively as it seems, does help me to feel better. It truly helps to shift my focus away from my pain and all the things I’ve endured in life. My parent’s tragic and very abrupt deaths are only a scratch on the surface of what I’ve been through. Honestly, I consider myself a walking miracle for still being alive and sober from alcohol and drugs for the 26 years I have. The amount of PTSD I’ve experienced and worked through with things like being chronically bullied, molested, and emotionally and mentally abused more times than I care to remember, I know many in my shoes would probably already be dead or heavily medicated just to cope with it all. But, I’ve learned I have to find positive ways to keep going, and the one you all see the most is me outside, toiling away, on a task that I know is repetitive and I’m sure at times a nuisance.

Nevertheless, maybe the next time you see me outside, doing a task that undoubtedly appears overly obsessive, pointless, and possibly irritating, you’ll understand a little better now that it’s one of the only things I have left that makes me feel slightly better, that helps me to keep going on plenty of days, and gives me some sense of purpose. I pray none of you ever have to walk in the shoes I have thus far in life, because I wouldn’t wish that upon any of you. Regardless, I love you all.

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

As we enter yet another holiday season of ghosties and ghoulies, turkey feasts with all those fixings, and the birth of Jesus Christ along with Santa’s arrival as well, I made the difficult choice this year to do something I haven’t done in over eight years, and that’s to not decorate at all during any of it.

For those who know me, I tend to go all out during the holidays in the way of decorating. If you were to drive down the street I live on during the month of October in prior years for example, you’d always see my entire front yard lit up with festive Halloween decorations. The same has been true mid-November through the beginning of January with tons of brightly lit Christmas decorations. All in all, between set-up and take down and making sure things stay lit and functional, the time and energy it encompasses has always been a huge undertaking in my life.

This is precisely why I’ve decided to take a break this year. To put it simply, I’m worn out. Between my ongoing health issues, this pandemic, and struggles in my relationship, I decided it was more important to take care of myself this year and reduce my stress level by refraining from holiday decorating. The last few years especially, holiday decorating has brought me an incredible amount of stress. Decorating for Christmas alone for example takes me at least two weeks of time for set-up and an entire day for takedown. There’s also the constant monitoring of it when it’s lit since things always seem to burn out. Sometimes there’s even been vandalism I’ve had to deal with causing me even greater stress.

This isn’t any sort of “Bah Humbug” syndrome, as I do plan on still honoring the holidays in different ways this year as compared to years past. I simply feel it’s important for me to take this year off from doing a task in the hopes it will not only give me a reduction in holiday stress, but also to bring forth a motivation to do it again in the future.

For as much as I do have sadness that all my lights and figurines and cheerful holiday adornments will remain in storage and dark this year, I feel it’s something I need to do to take care of myself, as I truly am struggling in my life right now just to keep going. Holiday decorating isn’t a necessity but taking care of my health is.

While I plan on appreciating other homes this year who do decorate this holiday season, hopefully, taking this year off from doing any of my own decorating will allow for a far more stress-free holiday season than what I’ve experienced in years past and maybe even experiencing a peace I haven’t been able to achieve in holidays past.

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

I have frequently questioned why I’ve had such a volatile life filled with plenty of PTSD-based events. While the drinking and drugging part of it was of my own making, just as much as the toxic addictive relationships I got myself in were as well, most of my life beyond that has been tumultuous at best and out of my control, which has left me wondering more than not, did I choose to live a life like this prior to incarnating, or did I just get dealt an unfortunate hand, or is it because of something else altogether that’s far beyond my comprehension?

Regardless, it is regularly said never to compare oneself and one’s life to another, but on this planet that’s a very challenging thing not to do when struggling with some type of pain for long periods of time. My ego has led me on far too many days to envy those who have had far more stabler lives, who have countless stories of joy to speak of. I honestly wish I had those to share as well.

What I do have to share about and have done my best to work through is parental alcoholism, childhood mental and emotional abuse, constant bullying in grammar school, being molested at 12, experiencing a father’s suicide, watching an addicted mother slowly and angrily wither away until her drunken fall down the stairs, seeing the only business I ever owned completely fail losing everything I had put into it, almost going through bankruptcy, losing much of my health in the process, and having the inability now to work for a living, where I’m more dependent than independent.

Because of living this turbulent life, most of which being truly out of my control, there are times I regularly picture myself in some heavenly-type place, a positive and peace-filled space, sitting with some higher being of light, telling them how I want to go through all these difficult things in the life I’m about to be born into, all so that I can eventually help others once I make it through them myself. Honestly, it’s the only thing that makes any sense as to why I’ve had so many unfortunate things happen to me. Thinking this way does help to bring me comfort, especially on those days when my physical pain becomes so great. But, telling myself anything otherwise, like my life is just a bad hand I got dealt, only ever leaves me feeling depressed and hopeless.

Having lived such an unsettling life, I’ve met many others along the way who’ve experienced similar lives or worse, where their greatest thought has been why some people have to suffer so greatly in this world, while others often seem to not suffer at all or very little. That question is probably the greatest mystery none of us will ever get an answer for in our lives.

Nevertheless, I continue to do my best to trust God, clean house, and help others in life, sharing from my heart with all that I’ve been through. What God’s plan is for me beyond this is truly out of my understanding at this time. I accept that there must be some reason why I’ve endured as much as I have. What that reason or reasons are, I don’t know, which is why I continue to do my best to leave it in God’s hands. It’s how I keep on, keeping on, in a world that often feels lonely and upside-down for me.

I pray every day now for peace and joy to come. Why some of us have to endure far more than others, I may never know. What I do know is that it’s faith and hope that keeps me believing there’s a being of Light who still does care about me and has a reason or reasons for why I’ve had to endure as much as I have. Hopefully, one day I’ll have that answer.

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