This week, we meet Amy Oestreicher, performer, speaker, advocate, and survivor. She and I connected awhile back and I just knew I had to share her with you all. Her story is an inspiration and I love how she has found her voice and gone on to perform and share her story with others.
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I’ve
always thought myself capable of overcoming anything. In high school, my nickname was Audacious
Amy, ready to dive head-first into anything as a fearless, invincible-feeling
daredevil. I guess when you come into
this world, your health is something you assume will always stay status quo,
and your focus is drawn to the "more pressing" matters that come with
growing up, like fitting in with your friends or making the dance team.
As
a kid, I grew antsy with impatience, waiting until I was "older" to
start dating, to go to the mall unsupervised, to learn how to drive. I was
counting the days until I turned 18, giddy at the idea of college and
independence at last. Two weeks after I turned 18, I was pulled into another
realm where "waiting" took on an entirely new meaning.
What
happened to me
physically had no formal
diagnosis. I had ostomy bags and gastrointestinal issues, but I didn’t have Crohn’s
disease. Doctors were fighting to keep me alive, but I had no terminal illness.
There was so much damage done to my esophagus that it had to be surgically
diverted, but I was never bulimic. I didn’t fit into any category. Suddenly, I
was just “ill”.
When
an unforeseen blood clot caused my body to go into septic shock, my life changed
forever. Now, it was my devoted family who waited patiently and lovingly while
I recovered from a three-month coma. When I awoke, I waited many more months
before I could take a breath of outside air once again. I became extremely
well-versed in patience -- little did I know that I've have to wait eight more
months before I was discharged from the ICU, six years before I could drink a
sip of water or eat a morsel of food again and 27 surgeries before life showed
any promise of regaining stability.
In
the meantime, I became a surgical guinea pig, subject to medical procedures,
tests and interventions, as devoted medical staff put hours into reconstructing
and re-reconstructing me, determined to give me a digestive system and a
functional life.
As
a born go-getter, I've never been great with "patience." So I
became extremely frustrated as doctors explained to me how "it would be a
long road to recovery, but I'll get there." But healing physically and
recovering my "self" emotionally, feeling my aliveness as well as
being alive... I learned that this is a daily process, a life-long one. Life
will not always be perfect, and there's no reason to wait until things are.
I
had this fantasy that the day I was finally discharged from the hospital,
everything would be "back to normal." I'd have my old body back --
devoid of any medical scars, tubes, bags or IVs. I'd be eating and drinking
again. I'd be able to run, jump and leap like I had in dance class just the
week before my coma. These surgeries would just be a "blip" in my
life, and now it could proceed as it was meant to.
But
I learned something far better. I learned my life as I knew it had shattered,
but I could reassemble the pieces differently, but still beautifully -- like a
mosaic. These "imperfect" shards of a life I longed to reclaim could
create a work of art even greater, using the grout of experience and newfound wisdom.
I waited for the day I could finally eat again, which came after a 19-hour surgery requiring three shifts of nurses and doctors. I’d be happy, normal, and finally feel like me again – eating waffles for breakfast.Eating food made me feel again, but it also made me remember, even the things I didn’t want to remember, things that I thought a coma had permanently repressed.…like the hurt and confusion I had felt burning in my gut, but was too afraid to tell anyone about. Suddenly I was flooded with alarming memories of having been sexually abused by my voice teacher, also my godfather, for months before all this began. This huge role model in my life shattered my trust in an instant, plaguing me with anxiety that grew worse and worse until that stomach ache changed my world forever.
Although
these raw, forgotten emotions were so overwhelming; for the first time, I
realized I could feel. I decided
that I’d rather feel everything than nothing at all.
I
felt myself start to materialize. It was then that I realized I had been
waiting for what I had had within me all along – feeling.
Over
a decade has passed since my life took an unexpected detour. It was a messy
detour that put most of my anticipated life plans on hold, if not changing them
completely. But this detour turned into the richest time in my life. To this
day, I am still healing physically
and emotionally. Every morning I make a new attempt to find who I am and
to discover who I am becoming. If I had waited for life to be
"perfect," or at least for life to go back to "how it was,"
I would have missed out on so many things. I would have never mounted my first
solo art show after learning to paint in the hospital. I would have never
written a one-woman musical about my life that I've performed for five years, written
a play about my
abuser, or given a TEDx Talk... If I hadn't had the audacity to set up an online
dating profile for myself while still in my hospital gown, on IVs and
recovering from a disastrous surgery, I would never have married the first love
of my life. And when I was suddenly hit
with a divorce less than a year later, I learned that there is never a reason
to wait to fully love yourself.
I may not know where my detour is headed, and the road may be
terrifying at times, but that’s OK.
Not
“waiting” for life to happen can mean simply showing up and staying open to
where the path may lead. Even with
wounds that still haven’t healed – and that’s not a metaphor – I’m on the
road. If I’m willing to feel, I’ll
always have my heart to guide me. Apparently you don't need a stomach to
survive, but, a heart is indispensable!
They
say that all good things come to those who wait. But what for? Every day is an
opportunity to learn, to grow and better myself. I love the imperfect twists and turns my life has taken, simply because they have made
me who I am. It has been a mess, having life as I knew it shattered to pieces.
But bit by bit it's reassembling -- different, imperfect, but beautiful all the
same.
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Amy Oestreicher is a PTSD peer-to-peer specialist, artist,
author, writer for Huffington Post, speaker for TEDx and RAINN,
health advocate, survivor, award-winning actress, and playwright. As creator of her one-woman musical Gutless
& Grateful , the #LoveMyDetour
Campaign, which was the subject of her TEDx Talk, she's currently
touring theatres nationwide, along with a program combining mental health
advocacy, sexual assault awareness and
Broadway Theatre for college campuses and international conferences. She
currently offers private coaching and consults for creativity,
"detour navigation", public speaking, and social
media marketing.
Subscribe to her newsletter for
updates and free excerpts from her upcoming book, My Beautiful Detour,
available December 2017. Get your free
creativity e-book at amyoes.com/create and a
free guide to getting a TEDx Talk at amyoes.com/discover.
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