This Brutiful Life

[Note: This post may be updated in the future if more information is available.]

By my mid-twenties, I had been referred to so many different specialists, and there weren’t many answers. Around this time, I was given the name of a Naturopathic Doctor who was highly recommended for being a detective and finding the root cause of illnesses. I decided to give it a try; it couldn’t hurt at this point. I have always felt like the body is all connected, so I was hopeful that this ND could look at the body as a whole and give me a fresh perspective. The only problem was that he was not covered by insurance, so this began the recurring theme of having to pay exorbitant amounts of money for my medical care.

Besides the financial strain, this doctor was a welcome relief. He was kind and patient and told me that it was not all in my head. He started by treating for candida overgrowth. He then helped me discover some major food sensitivities, and treated me for many years for food sensitivities, environmental sensitivities, and intestinal candida overgrowth. He also helped me partially desensitize from the known mold exposure in my former classroom/school. I am forever grateful to him for finding these things and for continuing to move me forward. He was ahead of the game in these areas. For a few years, we thought that we had gotten to the root cause of the issue. At the time, I didn’t know that the food and environmental sensitivities were actually just another symptom and not the root cause.

Around the same time that I became a patient of the ND, I decided that I should see a therapist for extra support. Since I believed (and still believe) that health includes body, mind, and spirit, I wanted to dive into some emotional aspects of my overall health. I wanted to make sure that I was tending to all aspects of my life, and that other stressors (besides the stress of being physically ill without any answers) or mental health challenges were not contributing to the problem. There was not a mental health diagnosis, but that didn’t matter.

Overall, I was happy at this time. I was very much in love and loving married life. We had a healthy marriage and enjoyed spending time together. I was extremely grateful for his love and support during this time. However, I knew, even at that time, that the situation was impacting everyone who loved me. It is really difficult to watch someone you love struggle and not be able to help. Some of my family members really struggled during this time. I can’t even imagine their pain, and I love them for loving me so much.

Another situation was happening in my life at this time as well. A person in my family of origin was dealing with a mental health challenge. They had been incorrectly diagnosed previously, and now there was a more accurate diagnosis. Just like my situation was impacting everyone in my life, their situation was impacting everyone as well. I won’t go into specifics, because it is not my story to tell. However, since I am highly sensitive and feel the energy of others around me, it definitely added to the stress level at the time. A positive came out of this, though. There were many aspects of my childhood that were wonderful, but no one has a perfect childhood. Some aspects of my childhood that were confusing for me prior to this diagnosis now made more sense. [What I know for sure is that my family members are humans, and just like me, they do the best they can with the skills they have. Chronic illness (and Brene Brown 🤣) has taught me that. We are (mostly) all trying to do our best in this life.]

With everything going on in my life, and the lives of my family members, this period of time was difficult. I knew that a trained professional would be helpful for me, and I was right. She let me know that my feelings were normal and valid, and that “going through a shitty situation” is just as much of a valid reason to get support from a trained professional as is a mental health diagnosis.

This therapist also told me that my health situation was not all in my head. She told me that this was more of a physical body challenge than a mental health challenge, but she encouraged me to keep making my mental health a priority since it is all connected.

I was a part-time substitute teacher for one year, and then I went back to teaching full-time at a different school. I was in a new building, teaching a new class, and I loved my students and colleagues. Life seemed almost normal for a while, except for the strict food sensitivity meal plan I had to continue to follow. After the initial shock and difficulty of changing my diet completely in a time when the well-known special diets we have today didn’t yet exist, I was actually grateful to have some answers and to be feeling better. If all we had to do was drastically change my diet, we could handle that. My husband was the best person to have in my corner for food modification since he likes to cook. It was definitely better than something more serious.

Just another day of . . . This Brutiful Life: The Brutal & Beautiful Moments of My Life.