Sarah: Exploring Dysautonomia Through the Arts for Dysautonomia Awareness Month 2014

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Today on Exploring Dysautonomia Through the Arts is the first song offering courtesy of, Sarah. I am constantly amazed as each submission is able to capture another aspect of living with Dysautonomia and chronic illness. The ideas of burden and inconvenience Sarah explores are something with which I continue to to struggle.

I'm a 22 year old musician, I've recently moved out of home hoping it will help my health; I have a neurologist, cardiologist and a great gp. My family and friends try to understand my illness but they don’t. How could they? So maybe this will help people understand. 

My piece is a song I wrote last year about my struggle with keeping relationships together while Dysautonomia controls my life.

I wrote it while at university, I was diagnosed with Neurocardiogenic Syncope within my first year, I was passing out left and right, having seizures and terrible pain. I would lose consciousness on average of 8 times a day, everyday; my biggest seizure/convulsion attack lasted for more than 14 hours straight. 

Often, I’d be unconscious on the floor of a classroom or in the hallway at uni, most people would leave me and I'd be there for hours, though some special people sat down and tried to help me. This song is how I feel about that, I'm grateful that they try to support me, but I don't know why they do – I’m an inconvenience, I make life hard by just being, I can't ever return the favour. 

The song is called Let You Go. In the lyrics I talk about the struggle of deciding to cut myself out of everyone’s lives for good just to make it easier for them because I'm such a burden.

We are in our pjs because I wanted to dress is my 'I’ve given up on life clothes,' to show that struggle affects every part of me and it’s too hard to keep trying sometimes. 

"The lyrics can be a bit confusing if you sort of don't understand, so as most of you know I have this condition thing where I pass out and convulse and stuff…so it’s sort of about that how people will come and look after me but I don't really know why they're doing it…because I can't look after them, 'cause they're not screwed up in the brain like I am, I can't give them anything in return and I don't really understand why people would help me. So this is what this (song) is about.”

Let You Go – Sarah Foord
lyrics:

I never wanna let you go,

And I don't know, what else to say.
I never wanna let you go,

And I don't know, what else to say…

‘Cause you take my pain.

I wanna do that for you, babe.

Oh you take my pain,

While you have nothing to gain…

You always hold me tight

While I try to fight the ghost in the dark.

You'll always hold me tight

While I’ll try to fight the ghost in the dark…

‘Cause you take my pain.

I wanna do that for you, babe.

Oh you take my pain,

While you have nothing to gain…

I love when I'm lost,

‘Cause you're always there.

But that’s not fair…

I never wanna let you go,

And I don't know, what else to say.
I never wanna let you go,

And I don't know, what else to say…

‘Cause you take my pain.

I wanna do that for you, babe.

Oh you take my pain,

While you have nothing to gain…

While you have nothing to gain…

While you have nothing to gain.

This song is protected by copyright and belongs to Sarah Foord

*(NCS: Neurocardiogenic Syncope; POTS: Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome)

For more information on Dysautonomia be sure to check out:

DINET 

Dysautonomia International 

Dysautonomia SOS 

NDRF

Syncope Trust And Reflex Anoxic Seizures 

UK POTSies

Vanderbilt Autonomic Dysfunction Centre 

Remember to head on over here to donate to my Clicking My Heels For Dysautonomia, raising money for the Greg Page Fund for Orthostatic Intolerance and Dysautonomia research, at The Baker IDI. Thanks to the generosity of many we've already raised over $3,200, keep donating and hopefully we can reach $10,000.