My Friend The Doe

Last week, I experienced what I believe to be an arrhythmia. I consulted with my dear cousin who is a cardiac nurse, and she agreed. In all likelihood, it was benign and non-life threatening, and I have two appointments in September: one with my cardiologist office and a second with a new electrophysiologist who deals with the heart’s electrical system. All of this to say, it wasn’t the arrhythmia itself, I found, that bothered me most…

In the moments of having an arrhythmia, your heart feels strange; floppy, pounding, fast, and even pausing. The tachycardia, or racing heart rate, I feel frequently, so that didn’t concern me so much. With POTs, one of the hallmark symptoms is an increased heart rate with postural change. An arrhythmia, though, is different.

Between the runs of racing heart, my heart would stop. Two to three seconds would pass and nothing would happen. The first time it happened, I panicked. I felt breathless. I sucked air in, hoping it would somehow kickstart my heart. Suddenly, my heart would slam, hard, out of my chest. Revived. Seconds would pass where I would have a racing heart again and then the dreaded pause would happen. The second time, I couldn’t help but wonder: what if my heart doesn’t restart? What if this pause turns into something much, much worse? In those seconds when my heart would pause were the seconds where I would end up living in epiphany.

The thoughts raced. What if this was it? What if I pass out and die? Then I thought, “I can’t die like this. My kids will find me and I can’t traumatize them like this. I can’t die like this.”

Thankfully, the rhythm corrected itself after 2-3 minutes with me flinging myself on my back and holding my breath. As quickly as it onset, it stopped. My normal heart rate resumed in seconds. I was just as okay as I was before the arrhythmia started.

The rest of that day, I was in shock. My mind kept the same record on repeat: “I could have just died. I could have just dropped dead right then. I can just die at anytime.”

It’s one thing to conceptualize something, to logically know. It’s another thing to comprehend something deep in the spirit. That day, I had a spiritual epiphany.

Yes, I could die at any time. No, my youth no longer protects me like a warm security blanket. The hypervigilance I’ve embraced over the years in order to lull myself into a false sense of safety (to my own detriment) suddenly seemed so useless. Any of us can truly die at any time.

The next day was also rough. By night, I finally figured out what was so unsettling about it all. At the end of the day, I have no control. I’ve spent my life spinning webs of contingency plans for circumstances that never happen, for a protection that is nothing more than illusory. I’ve spent so much of my life battling an enemy that will always win; an enemy who I need to accept as a friend. In the meantime, life is just passing me by.

The next day, I came across a doe in our yard. She's been coming around for a while now, lazing about and eating my tomato plants. Last week, I left a carrot and some fruit out for her. Ever since, she comes by at least once a week.

As I stood and admired her, she eyed me with uncertainty. Fear; something I recognized instantly, and something with which I almost over-identify. I said hello to my dear friend, and moved along. She stayed.

It was then that I realized I am her, and she is me. Both creatures of God, creatures of habit, creatures primed to fear what they do not know or do not understand. At least her fears were justified. I have spent a majority of my life in a state of sympathetic nervous system overdrive, my body constantly scanning for threats where there are none.

Suddenly, I could see myself and the world clearly for one moment. I relaxed. I expressed gratitude for this life I’ve frequently taken for granted. I cried, sobbed into my thankfulness for still being alive. It dawned on me that taking it day by day is all that I can do. Living in the present is the only solution, for it is the only real moment. Just as the doe.

Yesterday, I did therapy around this fear of dying, which deep down is a fear of being alone. A fear of abandonment. A fear of self-abandonment - again. My inner teenager weeps and rages, weeps and rages. All I can do is hold her close now, and love her the way she should have been loved long ago. To reassure her that I won’t leave her ever again; that I won’t stray so far from myself once more.

The doe is my friend. She is my mirror. A reminder in a world of chaos and badness, to be at peace. This phobia of death won’t disappear over night. This is something I will be working on, maybe each day forever. Strangely, I am okay with it. As long as in the end, I can come to a place of radical acceptance and peace, that’s what matters.