an overflowing bathtub

When something is wrong in my body, I itch. For the past seven months, I’ve tried discerning what exactly the wrong thing is, because I’ve only been diagnosed with psoriasis, but my body has flared with rashes that are not related to my autoimmune disease.

One, I’ve discovered (thanks to my amazing therapist, who in addition to being a mental health expert has also gone through similar physical health issues), is a histamine intolerance. I’d never heard of this before she brought it up, but the more I research, the more I realize how many of my symptoms are tied to this particular problem. I don’t want to get into the specifics, because I’m not a medical professional and I’m not trying to offer medical guidance.

I do, however, want to process the thoughts and feelings that have surged and sighed over the course of this learning-my-body time.

A histamine intolerance isn’t the same thing as an allergy, although similar reactions can occur. An exposure to an allergen results in an immediate reaction; with histamine intolerance, it’s more like a bathtub that’s slowly filling with water. Maybe over years and years. And nothing happens until the tub overflows. In the same way, healing can’t occur until the tub has been drained. You might clean up the mess from the overflow, but if the tub hasn’t emptied, you’re still on the verge of a flood.

For me, histamine intolerance has resulted in a hot, supremely itchy rash on my chin. While some of my psoriasis spots have remained hidden (thank you, armpits and scalp), this one attacks both my mental fortitude and my vanity. It feels awful and looks bad, too. At the height of my flare, when everything wrong in my body went really, really screwy, this rash had spread down my neck and across my shoulders. Now, I only occasionally feel it coming on, and I can stop it by adjusting my diet (certain foods, anything aged or fermented or leftover a long time, have high histamines, even if they’re healthy like kimchi and kombucha).

Here’s what bothers me, though. Or, maybe more accurately, what I’m grappling with: when my rash subsides, I feel healed. But I’m not. I’ve just stopped the overflow. I don’t actually know how long it will take for my insides to recover. I don’t know how far the waters have receded. When the rash dries up and flakes off, I feel like I’m totally fine. And then a week of eating leftovers, maybe the tiniest bit of a good parmesan, and a few glasses of wine and I’m scrubbing my face and complaining to my husband.

When my face is erupting, my skin cracking and yellowing and flaking off, I know something is wrong inside. But the reverse isn’t true, and that’s where I struggle. My skin might calm down, and my body might still be inflamed. My rash might heal, but my leaky gut might not be resolved.

I feel disheartened when I think about the hard work ahead of me that seems, in some ways, pointless. Avoiding leftovers, culling my wine habit, breaking off bits of the expensive chocolate I bought for myself to share with my children instead; that’s unfair. If I’ve gotten my skin under control, the rest of me should have wrangled itself into submission, too.

But that’s what it’s like with my heart. And that’s where I try to go, when I’m weighed down by the discouraging task of working for what feels like nothing. My faith requires discipline and self-sacrifice, even if I feel like I’m doing okay. I set my alarm and crawled out of bed to read my Bible today; I’ve earned the right to sleep in tomorrow. I volunteered at church last week; maybe instead of serving someone else now, I’ll stay home and read a book. And on it goes. If there’s the slightest bit of evidence that I’ve done enough, I want to stop completely.

I want to make food choices based on what I can see, not what I know is actually right. It’s the same with my heart. And, for some reason, I’m still surprised when a few minutes ago I held my tongue when my kid annoyed me, and now I’m barking at my husband for something insignificant. I thought I’d made progress, but really, I’d just mopped up the spills on the bathroom floor. The water is sloshing. I haven’t plunged my arm into the tub, wrenched out the stopper, and let everything swirl into oblivion.

I might feel okay in my faith, I might convince myself I’m not sinning that much, but I haven’t taken up my cross. I might be thinking if the floor is dry, it doesn’t matter that the tub is full. But it does.

I need to read my Bible even when I read it yesterday; pray now even though I prayed earlier. Not because I believe in a works-based faith, but because I don’t. I don’t think whatever progress I made in the past matters now. I don’t get to cheat or grow lax because I worked hard earlier. I can’t view my sin as a tub of water, and, as long as I’ve let some of the water drain out, turn the tap to drip, because I think I’ve hidden the evidence of the state of my heart. But I am very, very good at ignoring the tub because I can point to what I’ve cleaned up. Look! No puddles.

In so many ways, I’m like the Pharisees, the white-washed tombs. It’s so much easier to clean up the little bit on the outside than do the hard, long work of cleaning up what’s hidden. And I don’t mean that we save ourselves; Jesus secured our salvation for us, forever. But there is a working out of that salvation. Just like in the Old Testament, God brought the Israelites out of Egypt, and then he gave them the law. He saved them first, then told them how to obey in light of their redemption.[1]

May we all have the courage and the self-denial to unplug the drain.

[1] Deut 4:37-40