To Be Held
- Jamie Lynn
- Sep 3
- 8 min read
It’s 11:30 p.m. The full moon has risen over the mountains, glaring its brightness into my tent through the thin canvas. I hear the sounds of the high desert — grass bugs chirping, wind through dried grass and lush sagebrush, the light lapping of waves from the nearby lake. This should have been sanctuary, but I cannot enjoy it.
My stomach is SOUR, and my body feels like it cannot cool down. It’s 65 degrees, but my skin is HOT and my heart is fluttering. I do my tapping, breathwork, affirmations, and chants — nothing helps. Thoughts blur and swim through my mind: all the things that could, can, and will go wrong being sick at the campsite.
I think, maybe I should wake someone up, ask for help…
NO.
My thoughts scream:
NO, DO NOT BURDEN THE PEOPLE WHO CAME FOR THIS WOMEN’S RETREAT. THEY ARE HERE FOR PEACE. YOU CHOSE TO BE HERE. IT’S NOT THEIR PROBLEM. IT’S YOURS.
I let the screaming win. I didn’t reach out for help, letting the fellow participants sleep as my suffering continued.
The Chamber of Trials
I ran to the sheltered vault toilet, greeted by flies and spiders. I didn’t care — I HAD to go. Fucking diarrhea, in a room full of flies, a HOT room, stinking to fucking high heaven. I emptied my menstrual cup, filled to the brim on my HEAVIEST flow day.
The cramping and stomach pains are bad enough, but my body cannot cool and my heart is racing. It’s frightening.
"Why did I come? I know my heavy days are bad — I should have waited! Why did I PUSH myself to set up my tent alone, unload my car, and unpack during the hottest part of the day, during a desert heatwave, WITHOUT SHADE?"
I walked back to my tent, full moon guiding my path, and tried to settle in. The clock reads 12:30 a.m. I text my partner about picking me up early and helping pack if it gets worse. I nestle into my pile of blankets and sleeping bags.
The chills kick in. They do not cool me; they confuse me as to whether I am hot or cold.
It’s getting worse…
Driving Through the Shadow of the Self
It’s 1:30 a.m. I have been throwing up for 45 minutes, unable to keep even a sip of water down. Things have gone from bad to terrifying. I decide to leave, not wanting to risk bothering anyone resting in tents. I pack my essentials, telling myself that after a good night’s sleep in my own bed, I can come back tomorrow to finish packing.
I get in the car and blast the AC, but the chills force me to turn it down until I overheat again. Every minute on the hour-and-a-half-long drive back home, I whisper, almost home… and keep going. I pull over four times to vomit the water I’ve been trying to hold down.
Halfway home, I begin to hallucinate slightly. Dark streaks and entity-like shapes form on the road. I slap myself awake, making sounds to stay conscious. I drift and snap back in, driving slow and steady. I know it’s dangerous, but I feel I have no choice.
The moon speaks to me, guiding me as she always has. She knows this is a journey I must take and keeps me stable as I face another “death.”
Fire in the Body, Storm in the Heart
It’s 3:34 a.m. I make it home. Relief floods me as I park and walk inside — little do I know the trial is just beginning. I go into my room with a bucket and water and begin nurturing myself. I cannot cool down. My heart races. THAT’S when the convulsing starts.
I throw up again. My body has HAD it. I involuntarily convulse and twitch, making sounds and feeling PAIN. My torso feels like I’ve swallowed knives. My muscles are tense, aching for release. My heart feels like it will explode. I throw up again and scream in agony.
My partner wakes. I look him in the eye, shouting through shakes:
“I HAVE TO GO TO THE HOSPITAL.”
He groans: “Ugh, are you sure?” He doesn’t know all I’ve endured since he’s been asleep. I tell him my body can’t stop convulsing. I need fluids, stomach medicine, and observation. I know my needs. He changes his tune and begins to rush. Within minutes, we leave, him comforting me the whole way.
Not Believed, Not Broken: A Night of Heat, Pain, and Persistence
It’s 4:30 a.m. We made the 45-minute drive from our rural city to the closest 24-hour emergency room, and I am convulsing and heaving in the waiting room. My partner is caring for me, keeping it together and making sure I am seen. It feels like an eternity until I am wheeled into a room — as I can no longer walk or stand — though in reality, it’s probably only 25 minutes.
I tell the staff over and over through the shakes: I was setting up a tent in the heat of the day at a campout. I got overheated, and I'm on my cycle. I can't cool down and have been throwing up for hours. I need fluids, stomach meds, and to be observed.
The hospital, of course, decides I need EKGs, blood work, and a CAT scan of my lower abdomen. Note: my pain is mostly in my esophagus from all the vomiting, yet they choose to scan my bowels and uterus.
Weird.
I’m given stomach meds right away, but no fluids. The meds don’t help — I still feel awful, though I’m not actively puking anymore. They give me pain meds before fluids, and I slightly pass out. I know they need to wait for blood work before giving fluids (which, why? I know I’m not a doctor, but again — why?), yet it’s now around 6:30 a.m. and I've gone hours with no fluid.
FINALLY, the man who insisted he was being kind (though he wasn’t actually that kind) sets me up with a fluid IV bag, and RELIEF begins.
I don’t even make a dent in the bag before life begins to return. I wake up fully conscious around 7:30 a.m.
Frustrated with the distrust and belief I did not know my needs, I shout: “Can I get some help in here?” A new nurse is on staff since the shift change, and he asks how he can help. I say bluntly: “I wanna go. Can I go?” — opting to skip the pee test they’d been hounding me for, since I couldn’t pee anyway.
After some sass (and not the fun kind) from the man who wasn’t kind but insisted he was, a woman comes in and discharges me by 7:50 a.m.
I feel as though the staff made assumptions about me, even if they pretended not to — it’s how humans seem to operate. i understand doctors are lied to constantly for access to drugs and some folks bail on bills, but to assume people are automatically liars isn’t great.
The official call at the end of the trip: hyperthermia — heat exhaustion plus dehydration.
Like I said, I knew what was wrong with me. If the hospital had believed me, it would have gone much smoother.
Waters of Release and Rebirth
I spend the next day resting. I hear my heart speaking, telling me what she needed me to hear but I couldn’t before. A part of me had to die to hear her. I held my heart and inner child over the loss of the women’s retreat due to forces beyond my control. I held her for the fear I felt when being in that dangerous situation. I held held her for the death we had to endure.
Tears flow. My inner child cries for all the events she missed that were out of her control, all the times she was too afraid to ask for help, and all the times she almost died. She screams for someone to witness her pain, for someone to make it okay.
I told her it’s okay to be mad, sad, disappointed, upset, scared — however she feels, it’s okay. I held my heart and sacral, breathed, and cried through it. I let her move through the pain, telling her that we need rest. Once we heal, we can create something for ourselves, but we must heal first.
Calm washes over me. That piece of me re-enters my heart.
I saw how holding myself, witnessing myself, supporting myself eases the burn of disappointment and create gratitude like a balm for the soul. It creates space for healing and growth, even in the most dire of situations of horrible of experiences.
This was not something I experienced in my youth. Instead, I received messages like:
"Oh, grow up, Jamie."
"Get over it, it’s not a big deal."
"Just watch tv and go to bed"
And the worst: "Have this benzo, teenage Jamie — it’ll calm you down."
To be able to replace those harsh, ineffective ways of coping with expression and gratitude was a full godsend. I have discovered a deeper becoming of kindness, softness, and gentleness with myself.
Opening to the River of Support: Surrendering to Care
This experience — and the revelations that followed — are the epitome of alchemy, a death and rebirth into a new way of being that doesn’t throw the baby out with the bathwater.
The next day, I went back to the campout to pack my things and see how long I could relax with the others. They were all so grateful for my health, that I had returned, and that we got to experience the day together. I was instantly welcomed back in a way that lowered my defenses and allowed my heart to open.
But they all kept asking the same question:
Why didn’t you wake anyone up?
Why didn’t you tell anyone you were suffering?
I had no answer — none that made sense. I had to dig in. I had to know why I didn’t ask for help. I just knew that I felt like I couldn’t.
I stayed for the day, letting the other women help me, care for me, and teach me. It gave me the courage, strength, and connection to host my Wild Woman Workshop that I had been preparing for months. I allowed myself to be helped and held all day by people who TRUSTED I knew what was best for me, people who trusted ME. And I trusted them — with my thoughts, feelings, experiences, and my nakedness.
I spent the whole day in and out of the water, topless, vibing with these beautiful beings who felt called to this women’s retreat, called to this moment, and they called to me.
They told me things like:
"It wouldn’t have been the same without you."
"I felt in my heart you were supposed to be here."
"It’s just so great to see you here."
All saying the same thing:
YOU BELONG.
I belong. I fit where I thought the universe had expelled me from. But it wasn’t an expulsion — it was a lesson.
A lesson to ask for help.
A lesson to allow others to care for me.
A lesson to allow myself to be held.
A lesson in trust.
Alchemy of the Heart
I have felt alone for a long time. But through this ego-death, I see the loneliness I placed upon myself. I may have suffered neglect, but I perpetuated the self-sabotaging lies that blocked true connection. I see those lies now — they sting, but not like before.
I am moving through mourning what those lies have done, feeling empathy for the versions of me that believed them. It will take time to process, but it’s part of the healing.
I will forever be grateful for the lessons, but I do not wish to ever repeat the experience or anything like it again. It was incredibly dangerous and I fully acknowledge that this is one of the WORST ways to learn spiritual lessons. From now on, I will listen when the underworld calls and create the ritual space for it, instead of pushing myself to get things done until the underworld pulls me down without warning.
After this experience, I took time to rest— truly rest — for two weeks. No responsibilities but self-care. I had space for this blog, a light amount of work, and a lot of study. Mostly, I followed what I need, rested when I need, and moved through what I’ve avoided. A cocoon for the new to integrate and the old to fall away. And it was a truly magical experience that has now become a ritual of rest for me that I revist.
But, more on that in another post.
I will always remember with great fondness and gratitude the wonderful humans at the Love and Inspiration for Women retreat. I love you all, forever.
-J.L.
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