Brutal, painful...and liberating.

5 weeks ago I put the first coat of Efudix on my face.

Last year my husband underwent this same treatment on his face.

I don’t recall exactly how he looked during it.? I remember it got very hectic at one stage. When I would look at him, I would get the pain in my belly that happens automatically when I see or feel that others are in physical pain.?

?Week 1 was easy.? Twice a day I’d glove up and apply the cream to my face.

Week 2 slowly but surely saw ‘easy’ leave the building to make space for agitation, distress and pain to take up residence.

I shared on here that I was doing this treatment on day 15 saying I would share more here as I went along, when I could.

The next time I shared it was day 21 when the treatment finished and you’ll soon hear why.?

Towards the end of week 2 I started to struggle.??

Fronting up to the bathroom where the cream sat on my basin took courage.

There were times when I would need to reassure and tell myself that ‘I can do this’ and that I wanted to live a long and healthy life and this was part of that deal.

Tears would build up inside me from the constant sensory hell…and eventually they would stream down my face.

Having something so visibly ‘wrong’ with me, bought out the caring, kind and compassionate sides of my teenagers.? Feeling their concern and care for me along with them offering to help me, was a beautiful outcome I was not expecting.

As for expecting…I wasn’t expecting 90% of what happened!!!

Week 3, the final week, feels like a week of my life that I lost.? A blurr yet so real. Times where I felt I had the lead role in a movie where the AuDHD/PDA menopausal mother of teenagers was being tortured by a nice shiny smooth white cream.???

I am shaking my head as I type these words in what feels like disbelief with a side of ‘WTF even was that?!?!’.

During that last week, there were times as I approached the bathroom, tears would start rolling down my face.? I would say out loud ‘Come on Zed, just 6 more times I have to do this’ (or whatever the number was).

I’d validate my experience and tell myself how brave I was and that this is for me, an act of courage.

It hurt.? It was brutal.? I was averaging 3-4 hours sleep in that 3rd week.

And, it’s over.

Yesterday was the start of week 4 and when I woke, I instantly knew I’d turned a big corner.

I could only feel a slight sensation in some areas.? Sensation, not agitation.??

People reached out saying they have been prescribed the cream and were worried about using it.

Someone said they have the cream and now they’ve seen my face, there is no way they are going to do the treatment.

A few have mentioned the 6-7 day cream that from what I understand has the same outcomes.? From what I know, if you used this cream, it’d kinda be like having a race to see who could reach 100 km p/h and you’re driving a Ferrari and I’m in a clapped out 1975 Datsun 180B.?

You are going to get to the finish line wayyyyy before me and I’m assuming you’ll miss my ‘week 1 and some of week 2’ and go straight into ‘hard’.

Do I have regrets?? Yes.

I wish I was more aware of the toll it took on me and I would have planned it more and made space during the 3rd week especially, for rest.

And I acknowledge that just like being a AuDHD/PDA wife/woman/mother with AuDHD/PDA teenagers, someone could have told me all about the brutal, painful, distressing moments that is the reality of parenting for me and many within my community……..

I had to experience it myself.

The sensory component in this treatment for me was enormous. That 3rd week had me pretty much locked and loaded into a threat response.

At any moment, with no warning, it felt like there was somewhere between 1 and 111 people, all armed with scalpels and any number of them would take to my face and make the tiniest incision in my skin.

Not one bit enjoyable. Ever.?

My capacity during this treatment took a downhill turn towards the end.?

The compound effect at play.?

The treatment on top of marriage uplevelling, on top of me navigating past trauma, on top parenting teenagers, on top of running a business and serving my clients, on top of…

It’s all relevant.

Armed with a stack of gold nuggets and a new appreciation for what health I have, the one thing that stands out the most from this trip to hell is…

I’m done listening to anyone infer that how I (or my children) are responding to sensory challenges and or pain isn’t the right way or a bit over the top or dramatic or or or.

My greatest gift to myself and my children is to hold my standards with love. So, when this does happen again, and it’s 100% guaranteed to happen given our neurodiversity, I’ll be using my voice and shutting that down.

How my body responds to anything is how my body responds and this process has allowed me to own that even more.

The carnage from people invalidating one's experience from birth to adulthood is all around us.

In one soft word of validation, everything can change.? Immediately.?

49 is knocking at my door.? 50 next year.

There will be more colonoscopies (my dad had bowel cancer at 45 and died at 46 and my mum had bowel cancer last year and they got it all with surgery - I’ve already had at least 6 or 7 to date).

My reading glasses will need upgrading…There will be physio/chiro appointments and other help needed to keep this body of mine functioning…a body that carries co-morbid conditions from being neurodivergent…

Oh and the ongoing dance with menopause and the variety of elements within this important time in a woman's life….

Wrinkles, wrinkles, wrinkles and stray random hairs…

Getting older is also bringing me face creams that hurt, make me cry and lose heaps of sleep…and I made it out the other side and once it’s over, it’s literally over.?

And, the BEST part….

Aging is bringing me home.??

To what matters now.

To my family.

To my body.??

To my heart.??

To me.??

My best years are yet to come, that’s already evident right now and it’s only going to get better and better from here.

Messy-Menopausal-Magnetic-Motherhood-Magic is my world now and there is no place else I’d rather be.

I get to be me, radically, in all areas of my life, and that means all parts of my AuDHD/PDA glorious self.? The same me in my marriage, in motherhood, in coaching/guiding/mentoring/business, as a daughter and as a friend.

If you are in this Messy Menopausal Magnetic Motherhood Magic period and you want to live out this next iteration of womanhood more connected to your body, your heart, your family and your life…I could be the person to help you get there.

It’s my genius to walk with women, giving them the safest container to explore their dreams, their trauma, themselves…

So they can unlearn it all…uncover their magnetism, and allow the magic of who they are to ripple out into their life.

This is livin’...

Message or email me at [email protected] and let’s see what’s possible for the rest of your 2024.

Radically,

Zoe?