My story is unique, just like yours. My journey is unlike any others out there and it’s mine.
If sharing what I’ve learned and how I learned it might help even one other person out there, then it is worth all the work. When you reach the point of feeling out of options, in total despair, and ready to give up on healing, it can paralyze you. You don’t know where to start, what to do, or which information to believe. We’ll get to how to decipher all of that in future posts 🙂 Just hang tight.
The journey might be long, but I can testify to you that it is worth it. Healing and ridding your life of daily suffering is worth all the struggle. And guess what, you have a team. You have me and your have the community that is building behind Prescribing Nourishment. I love my body just the way it is, healed, healthy, and free of pain. Do I sometimes still experience flareups? Yes. My body is trying its best and the more I support and nourish it, the faster it heals.
I had perfected productivity by 2017.
I had “overcome” psychological manipulation, bulimia, low self-worth, and was proudly independent.
Or so I thought.
Overdoing it Much?
In 2017, I was rockin’ the world, fit as I’d ever be, independent, barely sleeping, and being as productive as three people put together.
I was working full time in a Boston ICU, teaching for a university, coaching people in the workout world, teaching classes at the gym, fully involved in my church organization, conducting monthly service projects for the community and the hospital I worked at, and also decided to throw a community carnival for refugees (just in case I might be bored). This was just my norm – paralleled by all the years past. It was like I thought if I was running slower than anyone else in life, I was failing.
My body fought hard and honored my aspirations for a go-go-go life for as long as it could. Honestly, it’s been going on since I was five years old (any other stress balls out there?) It had put up a helluva fight until it started to show micro-level fails. I started getting symptoms that I would ignore.
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No sleep? That’s fine, I’ll subscribe and save cases of Monsters to keep under my bed in my apartment.
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Rashes that wouldn’t heal? Welp. That’s weird. Cover it up and move on, right?
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Ulcers in my eye from stress? Twice? No, it couldn’t be stress. It was surely some bug I picked up at work.
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Psoriasis? I became the queen of thick headbands to hide the patches and thinning hair.
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Hives and palpitations all the time? It’s probably just my excess caffeine and stress.
My moments of panic were ignored, as I convinced myself positivity was all in your willpower. Willpower was how everyone copes and improves, right? And besides, I was attractive and fun to be around. Successful and motivating to those around me. What else could a girl dream of?
Well…a lot, it turns out. It turns out having a panic attack in the public train station in Harvard Square is kind of difficult when you live alone and have no one to call. Thank goodness a kind, elderly man sat down next to me as I had my head between my knees hyperventilating, softly patting my back, reassuring me that I was ok. Having another panic attack next to the man sitting on his bench playing the saxophone in the Boston Commons isn’t overly comfortable for him to watch either. It turns out that you can’t just rub more creams on your rashes an hives, ignore when you feel overwhelmed, and sleep away ulcers in your eyes. It doesn’t help. Nothing does.
My body was losing the battle of abuse I was putting it through. I was losing control. My tight grasp on things I had neurotically controlled was slipping away. I spent hours sobbing, realizing I was losing the battle, not knowing how to control the screams of protest in my mind, the debilitating anxiety, and the paralyzing notion I believed that there was no way out of this. I was told that these were just diseases I had, and that it was about learning to live with them.
For some reason, my gut told me I wouldn’t find answers in medication.
I had tried medications for anxiety, IBS, and psoriasis in the past to very little fruition. Something just didn’t resonate with the idea of a Band-Aid for the problem. A lot of times a medication might help with symptoms, but it doesn’t address the root cause as to WHY something is happening.
Sometimes bloodwork doesn't tell you much at all...including allergy blood tests
Making changes in your diet can benefit your health and reduce your symptoms in ways that my conventional doctors never even acknowledged. I began to eliminate known irritants from my diet just to see what might happen. Experimentally began to choose to set my alarm a little later one day a week and skip the 1.5 hr gym session I had scheduled daily. And most importantly, I tracked my food intake and daily symptoms and poops to find out what was working and what wasn’t.
There are ways to find healing. REAL, reasonable ways to modify your life to find a pain free day, free of symptoms. My heart swells with gratitude as I reflect on how far I’ve come, and how much I’ve learned. I am here to share, educate, and communicate with you about what you suffer from. I want to know your dreams of how you want to feel. I want to be able to help you find ways to have a life free of pain, anxiety, depression, and whatever else might be ailing you through the right foods and lifestyle.
