If you have found this page, glad you dropped by, make yourself at home :)
My main purpose of this blog, except sharing my travels, love of food and random thoughts, was to share my experiences dealing with CVS for the past 10 years. CVS or cyclic vomiting syndrome or disorder is a mitochondria associated genetic disorder. After looking around for support groups or people who live with this disorder, I just wanted to have a space where I could be as negative or positive as I wanted. Im not here to tell you how everything will be alright eventually (I hope it will be), I am here to tell you what it feels like today.
It's a lovely rainy day today in England. It makes my heart yearn for samosas and chai and the scent of the earth after a monsoon shower.
It doesn't happen often, but I am reminded of my years as a young undergrad student, leaving Dubai to try and figure out who I am. To be honest, I thought it would be easier, leaving my home in the middle east to go to India, my presumed homeland for a bachelor's degree.
But somehow I was lost, my identity that I cultivated and built up from being in a school with an Indian syllabus and surrounding myself with the India that was brought over to Dubai by Indian expats, seemed to dwindle as I started all over. I had so much to learn and so much to understand.
However, as fate would have it, I acquired a group of friends who were more family than friends and they just moved into my life. We were all misfits, as society would term us. All from different countries or cities but drawn to this little town in India culturally or familially. And we built our own world, which now I understand was a big bubble, where we loved & lost and made our own rules.
I have made it a long term rule to never regret anything. But after those 3 years of being violently ill, from being misdiagnosed with food poisoning or gastroenteritis by a number of physicians and specialists, to being accused of being a hypochondriac, to being told not to be an attention seeker, to being admitted in the emergency room 26 times, watching relationships break down, watching myself spiral out of control as the fear and desperation kicked in, it was a challenge to call it anything but a struggle.
Don't get me wrong. The freedom of being able to actually say you understand what madness is, is exhilarating. But I left India in 2010 with a tremendous sense of guilt. The pain of holding in all the self-inflicted blame and responsibility for what I thought was the shambles of my what-could-have-been life, was accompanied by a tremendous sense of loss.
Recently, I had a consultation with a homeopathy practitioner to try and dampen and control the symptoms and effects of CVS. She asked me various questions about my life, my food habits and my relationships with people. And I surprised myself (and probably her) with the sheer amount of memories and thoughts I had carried over the years. What was a 90 minute appointment turned into a 180 minute session of me pouring my heart out to a virtual stranger.
It took me a long long time to reach this point, a place where I can talk about it. And I learnt that acceptance, as difficult a journey to persist on, along with forgiveness, be it for yourself or for someone who hurt you, can maybe..just maybe be enough to bring a smile on your lips before you fall asleep at night.
A special shout out to Angie (https://angiemooredvm.wordpress.com/) whose blog gave me courage I did not know I have :)
My main purpose of this blog, except sharing my travels, love of food and random thoughts, was to share my experiences dealing with CVS for the past 10 years. CVS or cyclic vomiting syndrome or disorder is a mitochondria associated genetic disorder. After looking around for support groups or people who live with this disorder, I just wanted to have a space where I could be as negative or positive as I wanted. Im not here to tell you how everything will be alright eventually (I hope it will be), I am here to tell you what it feels like today.
It's a lovely rainy day today in England. It makes my heart yearn for samosas and chai and the scent of the earth after a monsoon shower.
It doesn't happen often, but I am reminded of my years as a young undergrad student, leaving Dubai to try and figure out who I am. To be honest, I thought it would be easier, leaving my home in the middle east to go to India, my presumed homeland for a bachelor's degree.
But somehow I was lost, my identity that I cultivated and built up from being in a school with an Indian syllabus and surrounding myself with the India that was brought over to Dubai by Indian expats, seemed to dwindle as I started all over. I had so much to learn and so much to understand.
However, as fate would have it, I acquired a group of friends who were more family than friends and they just moved into my life. We were all misfits, as society would term us. All from different countries or cities but drawn to this little town in India culturally or familially. And we built our own world, which now I understand was a big bubble, where we loved & lost and made our own rules.
I have made it a long term rule to never regret anything. But after those 3 years of being violently ill, from being misdiagnosed with food poisoning or gastroenteritis by a number of physicians and specialists, to being accused of being a hypochondriac, to being told not to be an attention seeker, to being admitted in the emergency room 26 times, watching relationships break down, watching myself spiral out of control as the fear and desperation kicked in, it was a challenge to call it anything but a struggle.
Don't get me wrong. The freedom of being able to actually say you understand what madness is, is exhilarating. But I left India in 2010 with a tremendous sense of guilt. The pain of holding in all the self-inflicted blame and responsibility for what I thought was the shambles of my what-could-have-been life, was accompanied by a tremendous sense of loss.
Recently, I had a consultation with a homeopathy practitioner to try and dampen and control the symptoms and effects of CVS. She asked me various questions about my life, my food habits and my relationships with people. And I surprised myself (and probably her) with the sheer amount of memories and thoughts I had carried over the years. What was a 90 minute appointment turned into a 180 minute session of me pouring my heart out to a virtual stranger.
It took me a long long time to reach this point, a place where I can talk about it. And I learnt that acceptance, as difficult a journey to persist on, along with forgiveness, be it for yourself or for someone who hurt you, can maybe..just maybe be enough to bring a smile on your lips before you fall asleep at night.
A special shout out to Angie (https://angiemooredvm.wordpress.com/) whose blog gave me courage I did not know I have :)
