Ask Baba Yaga: How Can I Trust My Body Again?
Dear Baba Yaga,
About a year and a half ago, I started having some odd health problems that no one was able to explain. I kept going to doctors who kept saying I was fine, even though I knew I wasn’t. I finally saw the right specialist and got a diagnosis. I know now that what’s going on is not serious, even if it is a nuisance. I should be able to breathe easy again, but every time there’s an unfamiliar sensation of any sort in my body, a habitual panic returns. All the worst scenarios and what-ifs appear in an instant. How can I trust my body again?
BABA YAGA:
For years yr body was a lake you looked out on, its still water receiving sun & rain, throwing up a fish splash, offering a drifting branch,. You did not wonder at it , much. Then strange things emerged, beasts & drowned boats with ghosts still in them. The lake stormed & flooded yr hut. Even as the water is quiet again, every ripple wakes the fear in you. Yr work now is not to stop looking out into the water, but to look closer: What else is in this mystery? ;Do not trouble it by scouring, as it is not for you to see at once. Yet, the lake has spoken to you. Keep listening.
Previously: How Do I Stop Hating Everyone?
Taisia Kitaiskaia is a poet and writer living in Austin. She’s taking questions on behalf of Baba Yaga at askbabayaga [at] gmail.com.
Illustration of Baba Yaga’s hut by Katy Horan.