This is not a letter of martyrdom, but of radical responsibility. For the choices I did and did not make and the actions I did not take. Although I understand that we operate in systems, families, communities, and everyone plays a role that impacts the other, this is my responsibility to own – and doing so, empowers me.
I’m sorry.
Please forgive me.
Thank you.
I love you.
I’m sorry for not having the strength or courage to not only listen to, but follow, the whispers of my soul and the screams of my body before disease was forced to inevitably take me down.
Please forgive me for blaming illness and my body when I should have been taking radical responsibility for the choices I could have made – even if I didn’t know how or have the courage to face the outcome.
Thank you for showing me what life is like for those who live with illness, complex chronic diseases and severe neurodivergent burnout, as well as for showing me what it’s like for a new mother to live with these circumstances.
I love you. I know that my body and these symptoms have always been messengers trying to protect me.
I’m sorry that I forced my body to push through for years. I wasted so much time and energy trying to convince those in my family and support network that I needed help, that I was becoming increasingly ill and disabled, that I could not continue the way that I was with all that was needed and expected of me. I took the action steps that I could, but I felt so limited, so unsupported, so unheard and unseen. We had a baby who needed us, a partner who needed to work to provide for us, a stepson who needed his dad and blended family dynamics that meant that I was responsible for our child with extra support needs about 114 hours per week on my own, all while navigating my own declining health. In 2023 alone I attended over 130 medical appointments and 10 different specialists – for only myself. This doesn’t include the many appointments and specialists for my child, and I had to do most of them with her by my side – literally, clinging to me. I kept voicing that I couldn’t keep doing what I was doing on my own, but there was no one there to step in. I could have left, but I loved my family and wanted to keep it, and I also didn’t know where I’d go or how I’d survive on my own with this child depending on me and my health already crumbling. I tried to set boundaries but the guilt and fear of the consequences or results of holding those boundaries felt like they were eating me alive. I barely slept for 3 years after my child was born, mainly due to her needing so much support in the night. She had needs that at the time only I was able to see – and just because I could see them didn’t mean I understood them or knew what they meant or how to meet them. I begged for someone, anyone, to listen. To help us in the ways that we needed.
There was so much going on, unseen, and I was the carrier of it all.
I could have stopped begging and started acting, but I was afraid of what that would mean. I was afraid of what steps upholding big boundaries would require me to take. Everyone was doing the best they could with their limited understanding and perspectives, meanwhile, I was crumbling beneath the weight of it all.
I’m sorry that I spent years, probably decades, of my life trying to prove my worth through doing – trying to do it all, be it all.
I’m sorry that I spent years taking responsibility for other people’s choices, actions and behaviours, or lack thereof.
I’m sorry that I let my nature of assuming good intentions skew reality and that instead of accepting people as they showed themselves to be, I tried so hard to make them understand. I had such a strong belief that if they just understood our reality, things would inevitably change. But some people can’t understand; maybe they don’t want to.
I’m sorry that I ignored my intuition when it told me things were manipulation, I accept it now.
I’m sorry that my need to have other people see my worth, my good intentions, and who I truly am, overrode my ability to see my own.
Please forgive me for not standing in my power and honoring my own needs and boundaries, and, for not stepping back and honoring them quietly, when they were not being heard, understood or respected. I spent years aching to be loved, accepted and seen for who I am, rather than accepting that others can only perceive you through their own lens, just as I can only perceive others through mine. I didn’t feel able to accept that others’ perceptions of me were outside of my control and were not my responsibility. I accept that now (or am closer to accepting it, at least). I knew that others could not see my child’s differences in needs, therefore I felt solely responsible for meeting them. I couldn’t fathom those needs going unmet, and instead my own did – to the point of detrimental, bedridden illness where I was then unable to care for her (or myself) anyways.
Please forgive me for trying so hard that I depleted all sense of self entirely. For believing I needed to be loved, respected, seen, understood and believed by others, more than I needed that from myself.
Please forgive me for spending years choosing others above myself, above my own health, all the while, knowing what was happening behind the scenes. Please forgive me for trying so hard to make them see it, too.
Please forgive me for acting and perceiving based on people’s potential, rather than who they were right then.
Please forgive me for not taking more of a stand through action, rather than words. For wanting so deeply for others to make their own choices, take their own actions that aligned with what I was voicing. For them to see and understand the detriment that was taking place each day and how it was compounding.
I thought that by doing things the way I was doing them, I was choosing my child, that I was giving her the best that was available to her at the time. And, I probably was, but, when my health crashed to the level of long-term bedridden, she did not benefit from that. She is innocent in all of this and does not benefit from having a mom who is as physically unwell and disabled as I have been the last few years. My experience as a mom, does not benefit from this either. Please forgive me.
Thank you for showing me the consequences of continually choosing others over myself. It is not only since family life that I have done this, it began long before, probably as early as childhood. Thank you for humbling me and reminding me of my humanness. That I am destructible, that I am worthy of a life and support that serves me and allows me to be well. Thank you for showing me that trying the best I can, doesn’t mean pushing far beyond my capacity, repeatedly and continually. Thank you for showing me that doing the best I can, really means doing the best I can in that moment, on that day, within the capacity and resources that are currently available to me.
Thank you for showing me that it is not worthwhile, to attempt to prove my worth to people who are unable to see it on their own, or do not wish to.
Thank you for showing me in real time how my symptoms are messengers, what they’re trying to show me, protect me from or connect me to; and thank you for showing me how I have the ability to heal myself, my past and my lineage. Thank you for showing me that allowing myself to feel what has been repressed, is the greatest portal to healing more than just emotionally but physically as well.
Thank you for showing me how my body is always trying to find balance. That it is trying to protect me, redirect me, and talk to me. That it knows far more than I thought it knew, and that once I developed a connection and safety within it, I could trust it.
Thank you for showing me that being fully present and connected in my body, is one of the greatest spiritual lessons of this time on earth. That full embodiment and presence is not only what will heal us, but will connect us, will resource us, and will guide us.
Thank you for showing me the power and ability that I have within me, to help others who are suffering.
Thank you for this lived experience, that I never could have fully understood through any other way. I now have a new perspective and embodied understanding of what it can be like to live with severe, debilitating and disabling illness. I know one version of living as a disabled person. I am learning what it’s like to navigate spaces in a wheelchair and how different and challenging of an experience that truly is. I have more compassion and understanding than I ever could have before, for what a mother living with illness may actually be experiencing and how limited her options and resources may truly be through no fault of her own.
Thank you for expanding my capacity to endure, for showing me how far I can stretch, and for showing me my breaking points. I hope to never repeatedly force myself past them again.
Through my healing process, I have expanded my capacity to experience discomfort without running, without leaving my body or disassociating. That is one of the greatest gifts and talents to support my experience here on earth and my ability to show up as a mother, a partner, a daughter, a friend, and now as a healer or mentor.
Thank you for opening up windows and walkways for communication and deeper connection with those closest to me. I have now seen who’s chosen to walk through them and who hasn’t; who’s chosen to take self-responsibility for their choices and roles in new ways, who’s chosen to connect on deeper levels, and who hasn’t. I’ve seen who has come to understand the consequences of how far we pushed me, who hasn’t, and who has made choices to make changes that align with where we need to be now, first to survive, and then to recover, and soon, hopefully to thrive.
Thank you for showing me who’s truly on my team, and who’s only along for the ride in the ways that are convenient to them.
I love you. To my body, my symptoms, my lessons, my healing experiences, I see what you’ve been trying so hard to show me, teach me and redirect me.
I see that you’ve been trying to save me and to mold me into who I was always meant to me.
I love you.
The depth of my grief, gratitude, healing processes and the complexity of what led my family and I here could never be covered in a single blog post. Understanding the choices I made (and didn’t – even inaction or lack of making a choice, is, a choice) and the underlying beliefs and fears that fueled them empowers me to choose differently.
Perhaps, there will be more to come.
For the past year I’ve had the honor of offering a meditation and energy healing experiential group through an internal medicine clinic that I may never have had the opportunity to do if it wasn’t for living with these illnesses myself. These patients live with incurable complex chronic diseases that overlap with my own, such as long covid, ME/CFS, Fibromyalgia, MCAS, Ehlers Danlos, POTS, Dysautonomia, autoimmune conditions, and other post-viral illnesses.
Many people who do not have access to my work through the clinic have asked how they can access this work privately. I am excited to share that I have just released a private version of this offering which has been modified from the live offering to better suit the needs of those who prefer self-guided work or are unable to access my work through the medical clinic. While this offering is not identical to the one that I offer live through the clinic, it contains quite a bit of overlapping content and is a valuable place to begin or deepen your process of tuning inwards and listening to your body and intuition in different ways to support your healing. The meditations are designed to promote deep relaxation and facilitate your body’s natural healing abilities while reconnecting you with your own intuitive knowing to further support and guide you.
This offering is designed to be done over a 5 week period with one video per week. More details can be found here: https://deniseelysa.com/product/5-week-series-meditation-energy-healing-transmissions-for-complex-chronic-diseases-health-and-navigating-life/
Please note that this offering is not connected with the medical clinic and is designed to be done privately, on your own time at home. If you have any questions please don’t hesitate to connect with me privately to discuss your individual circumstances and whether or not it is the right fit for you.
