I finally returned home.

Before long the mixed feelings I was had turned into reality. I was happy and sad and everything in between but soon everything faded and all that was left was pain and shame. The shame manifested physically. So much so that I began to feel every odd sensation in my body as a signal that something was wrong.

At night, I laid in bed listening to binaural music for healing. It helped for a day or two but soon the pain was too much. What kind of pain you may wonder? Electric shock-like sensations throughout every limb of my body. I thought I had some sort of autoimmune disease or even worse, contracted one.

Everything I felt seemed like it was a problem, cold face, numbness, tight chest, the feeling of my own heart beating so much that I noticed it. I tried to deal with it alone until the left side of my face briefly became numb not once by twice for a few split seconds. Jumping out of bed in a panic, I ran to my dad and asked him to drop me off at the emergency hospital.

A few minutes later, I was there waiting for what felt like hours and was also hours. I want to say he dropped me off around 2 PM and it wasn’t until 8 to 9 in the morning that the doctors gave their opinion. Their conclusion; everything was okay so it must have been stress and anxiety. I think she heard me though when I said that I didn’t like drugs because she prescribed me one tablet and told me to take half if I needed help to sleep. A few nights later, I took a half and it didn’t do anything to help with my sleep and I still felt like there was ton of electricity in my body.

I needed a second opinion because I was also certain that there was a bigger underlying problem like MS since all the symptoms on one of the first links of Google made it seem that way. So, a couple days later, I arrived at the walk in clinic and the conclusion was that it wasn’t a bigger underlying problem but to make sure, she made me do a blood test. I believe they would call me if they found anything worth mentioning but they have yet to.

So, I guess it was all in my head right? I thought so too until I realized that some time between the doctor’s visit and not receiving any news, I kept giving electric shocks. I knew I had too much electricity in my body! Maybe it was my clothes or the carpet against my socks. I stopped wearing my socks when walking on carpet and did my best to ground my body whenever possible.

While the solution seemed practical at the end, I believe the lesson here is that the experience of pain can be re-interpreted but with the help of others. I had professionals tell me it was nothing and I easily believed their word over my own thoughts. It was a tremendous help but one thing I forgot to mention was that the electric sensation in my body was soon replaced with itchiness. It was no longer pain but an itch that needed to be scratch and with time that went away as well.

Still, I wonder if it was in my head or that my body, mind and spirit found a solution to dealing with it.