Member-only story
What to do When You’re Broken
And it’s not to go find someone to “fix” you
This was a year I felt pretty broken.
Shattered, in fact, at least in the love department. Especially in the self-love department.
It happens. My ex had opened my guts yet again on my birthday in January just as I landed in Indonesia. For anyone who doubts that emotional trauma can make you sick, kindly, let’s talk.
I ended up in and out of hospitals, got shuttled through six different urologists. I was really really sick. Ruined my trip, locked me into a small apartment inches away from a toilet. One night, famously (at least in my little life) I had to pee more than 200 times between 9 pm and about 8 am, which meant that all I could do was sit on the toilet with my computer on my lap. All night long. These days I find that pretty funny but at the time, kindly, it was hard to get the humor in the situation.
Let’s talk about how being broken, really and truly heartbroken, can make you ill. Severe emotional trauma can do some righteously ugly things.
It took a while before the docs and I sorted the problem out, I could fly home and we finally found a few things that worked. Didn’t solve the issue. It’s better-managed (aloe vera gel pills, interestingly, and I’ve had to forfeit tea, coffee…