The red thread

Many moons ago my psychologist told me the story of the minotaur in the labyrinth in greek mythology. Essentially men would go into the labyrinth to fight the minotaur who would routinely come up and eat a woman from the village, but because of the labyrinth and the dark, they could either never get out and died or the minotaur found them and killed them. Then this girl, Ariadne, was placed in charge of sending in the people to be sacrificed to the minotaur happy, to keep the minotaur from coming and destroying the village. But she was in love with one of the sacrifices, Theseus and so this wasn't a great situation, no one came out of the labyrinth....period. So what she did? She made a very long red thread and gave one end to Theseus and she held the other end...that way he could always find his way back, in the dark, away from the minotaur...in this way he managed to overcome the minotaur and end the sacrifices constantly made by the town.

My psychologist gave me this story because he suggests that we need Ariadne's thread....for me. My life is pretty complicated. I have dissociative identity disorder (previously known as multiple personality disorder), i have an eating disorder, I have depression and anxiety, I have query agrophobia, I have ocd traits, I get panic attacks....then there is all the medical stuff, I have ME/CFS (myalgic encephemyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome), fibromyalgia (FMS), mitral valve prolapse, tachycardia and other issues with my heart (including off and on long qt syndrome), I have electrolyte imbalances that make no sense, I have failing kidneys (yes that means I'm in kidney failure), I have gastroperesis, I have chronic issue with vomitting (and its not from purging - I cannot self induce vomitting), I have problems with my bowels and toileting, I get migraines that knock me down for 3 days....in the past 12 months, I've spent 5 in hospital...every day is a struggle. I'm not saying all this for sympathy, I'm saying this to say that my life just isn't straight forward and on top of all that, I DETEST being limited or held back and I am severely so.

Sometimes the labyrinth that is my life is so dark and so bad and there are different but definite minotaurs in there, ready to swallow me whole, ready to frighten me so I lose my way...but I need that red thread that even though its scary and overwhelming and I feel like I'm going to be attacked yet again at any second...that there are people that know where I am and can help me get out. It might not take a day or a week or a month, in fact I think that the red thread is long and complicated and messy and crosses over sometimes so that I go down the wrong hallways again and again...but while there is someone holding the other end, I have a hope of getting out, either here on earth or in eternity.

I'm lucky I have a fantastic psychologist, psychiatrist, GP, pain specialist, CFS physician, nephrologist, sleep specialist (who I rarely see anymore, in addition to the immunologist and cardiologist who I don't see anymore either). I have amazing friends that love me. Most of all I have a God that can see the back of this tapestry he's weaving and he knows who has what strings and what corners to turn to get me out of this mess.

I think a few more of us could do with Ariadne's red thread in our life....but that means we need to both ask for and accept help, not just professional help...but personal help, from friends and if we're lucky enough family. Read the prior post if you want more of my thoughts on that.