For the few that read to the end of this, it's a long one. This is not a prescriptive story of what I think you should do or even that I think what I did was the best path, it is just a descriptive story of what I actually went through. On the other side of it I would have done so many things different, but this is where I was at stumbling along a hard path. The past four years have been really challenging for our family mainly due to my health. I've never fully outlined all that I went through to try to heal and get out of pain, so I'd like to do a more bullet point outline of the journey so you can get a fuller picture of what we endured.
In July 2021 I suddenly stopped sleeping for 7 days. I visited the ER, a couple sleeping pills later and I barely slept 3 hours and continued 3 more days without sleep. Another visit to the ER and a higher dose of medication and a recommendation to see psychiatrist for the insomnia. We found Amen Clinics in Atlanta with a wait time until October and a recommendation to wean off the medicine with our primary care doctor before receiving SPECT brain scans at the Amen Clinics in order to get a more accurate read. It took 8 weeks to wean off the medicine (one of the hardest things my body went through at the point). I had developing head and neck pain and remembered just before the insomnia I had hit the back of my neck on our hard wood floor, losing my balance trying to get up off the floor.
I was receiving chiropractic care to help with the pain. The psychiatrist had several findings the main being chronic PTSD, generalized anxiety and obviously insomnia from emotional trauma (my mother had passed the year prior and I had my 2nd child and was experiencing some postpartum and grief at the same time amongst several other distressing situations). He also believed that there were biomedical factors such as possible mold exposure, heavy metal toxicity, mild head trauma and recommended working with a natural path doctor to explore those findings. He also recommended therapy and EMDR for trauma processing. He put me on several supplements to support the brain, and I went to a natural path that did a hair analysis test and my psychiatrist ordered a blood test for mold and full hormone panels. The natural path thought the mold was my issue and put me on the Kozner diet where I lost a lot of weight due to all its restrictions. Later the mold test was negative and not an issue, but we had already gone down that road and purchased expensive air filters and did the diet regimen. All my blood tests were normal and eventually I ended up on 53 supplements a day for a time. Quite excessive now that I look back. A lot of this was excessive and therefore ended up causing me a lot of fear, medical trauma and pain. When you are in a lot of pain you want desperately to get out of that pain and anyone who promises that you can become open to.
I had already began with a therapist before seeking psychiatry. When the EMDR recommendation came we started doing that every week and it had the opposite affect on me and started to pull up trauma and my sleep continued to suffer and be erratic. It became a bit of a lottery as to whether I would sleep any given night. Without sufficient sleep it wasn't wise to keep digging into trauma via EMDR, but we didn't realize that at the time. We were just vulnerable and desperate to get better, and trusted the doctors and professionals to lead us on the right path forward. Prior to this I never had any sleep issues or extreme pain so we were in uncharted territory. I barely even visited doctors my entire life because I was always very healthy. My hair analysis test revealed metal toxicity to 3 metals. I was told to have any metal removed from my mouth in order to detox heavy metals. Possible exposures were my old work uniform whom thousands were actually poisoned by, or simply it can be passed on from your mother at birth and get to a toxic load eventually. I had one root canal which coincidentally started hurting around this same time. The tooth was cracked underneath the crown which was porcelain fused to metal and not salvageable. I had to have it completely removed. I'm thankful I did because they found a small mercury filling underneath the crown, but that was a painful 18 month process to have it removed and replaced with a non-metal implant. I was then able to detox heavy metals with chelation via pills I took everyday for 3 months. I followed up with blood tests for all 9 metals, and every metal was within a safe range. Praise God! Rewind along this process my neck and head pain got worse and worse to where I couldn't lift my left arm without significant pain. Sleeping was painful and I developed migraines which the first one lasted for 2 months...meaning it didn't go away night and day. I thought I was dying. My face also had pain and I had to look in the mirror sometimes to ensure that half my face wasn't drooping because on the inside it felt like it had fallen.
Finally I got an x-ray after 5 months of pain and was told my curvature was falling forward at 2 vertebrae's and I needed to take it seriously. Which led to aggressive chiropractic treatments and traction that after 2 visits my neck felt drastically worse. I think my neck locked up and couldn't handle the aggressive adjustments. I switched chiropractors and after months was still in pain. The migraines increased and the sleep loss had taken such a toll on my body and mind. I had been fighting, but I felt like a shell of my former self. There were times I seriously wanted to die because it was that physically painful. I thought Zac and the kids would be better off without me. I was never planning my death but just wished the suffering would end. Over the course of 6 months we had spent our savings on medical bills and living expenses, moved into our in-laws temporarily and shut down our family business. We lived out of suitcases for 8 months in a room with a full size bed for all four of us. Needless to say my sleep and mental health continued to suffer. So much hope was lost and many expectations crushed. There seemed to be no end in sight and now we were on our 3rd chiropractor with neck and lumbar MRI'S which helped very little. I started chiropractic bio-physics and did lots of different types of massage to help relieve the neck and head pain. I tried so many different pillows to support my neck. I tried prescription medication for what I was told was nerve pain, but it didn't even touch the pain. I felt homeless, lifeless, joyless, friendless, trying to push through and hold it together for my kids and a future I thought I would have. I did therapy programs that never seemed to resolve the past I previously didn't struggle with. All the digging I believe created mountains out of buried molehills and started to create these beliefs that I was broken in some way both physically and mentally and needed fixing. Things got so bad I started having breathing problems and ear pain at a level 9 or 10 and panic attacks. At this point I went to an urgent care to get some pain medicine while I was told the new found chiropractic would help but could cause some additional pain. The nurse told me you have 4 out of 5 TIA symptoms and should go to the ER for an EKG immediately. We did go to an ER and received a lung x-ray, EKG and a brain MRI and I was all clear. Just still in chronic pain with a few muscle relaxers and an atypical migraines diagnosis. Next steps included 2 neurologists, 5 chiropractors in total, 1 physiotherapist, 5 months of PT, ENT specialist and continued therapy for now the medical trauma, and more massage for relief. I tried 1 acupuncturist appointments and don't like needles so I gave up quickly on that. I did 8 months of somatic movement and did I mention I got pregnant 1 1/2 years into this and went through pregnancy in chronic pain, and nursing in chronic pain. All this took such a toll on me mentally and physically. Day to day was a massive challenge and at this point I was just trying to survive and keep a little hope alive that this wouldn't be my life forever. I didn't feel like myself I became irritable, mostly sad, angry, confused scared and bitter. I didn't recognize myself. I was nothing I thought I used to be. I hated the woman I was seeing in the mirror and I became very lonely.
In July 2024 I went 5 days with no sleep after seeing a lot of progress over the previous 11 months. I was treated as a danger to myself and others, and admitted to a behavioral health center for 9 days being treated with drugs that affected me very negatively. I was in such extreme fear and didn't actually comprehend where I was that I shook and panicked all night eventually pretending to be asleep so I could go home. I was was mistreated, separated from my husband and treated like I did something wrong for going to the ER because I didn't want 5 days of no sleep to turn into more days like the last time. I came home confused, not well rested and that's the first time I actually wanted to die. Like every night I seriously wished to be dead because the hospital trauma experience was so great. I wasn't normal, I was on medication I didn't choose and I was paranoid. My head hurt worse than it had in over a year and I cried a lot. I started therapy again to talk about this current ER visit turned hospitalization. I really just didn't want to live. I felt betrayed, experimented on and like I could never be the mother or even just the human that I wanted to be. I felt like I had lived out a worse nightmare than even I could dream up. I visited my old psychiatrist who immediately removed one of the medications because he thought the combination was unusual for me.
By November I was off all the medication, so it took me 5 months this time to wean off all the medicine. It became an immediate need to wean off the additional sleep and anxiety medication due to yet another surprise pregnancy! This medication was unsafe for the baby and thankfully my head hurts way less and I can think clearer after being completely off of it. Seven months after that event I'm sleeping relatively well. I returned to work for a month and then took maternity leave. I revisited a chiropractor and then finally stopped all together after my neck and head started feeling a little better. I'm able to pick up both my kids and cook clean and care for my toddler all day. All of this I wasn't capable of after July of 24'. It's not easy everyday but I am finding more and more gratitude to be able to just do daily tasks, sleep at night, and have moments without pain or simply to stare at nature or hear the birds make me smile.
One of the most integral things that has helped me recover is surprisingly watching YOUTUBE videos on a channel called pain free you. It's a guy named Dan that coaches you out of your pain based on the prognosis of TMS ( Tension myo-sitis syndrome or what he calls perceived danger pain). He teaches you to create safety in your brain and recover from fear. After all I experienced you can see I needed to rediscover safety, physically emotionally mentally and medically. I had a lot of fear on the other side of things and I needed to recover. A good friend of mine recommended him probably three times before I gave him a shot. I started listening in my last pregnancy and I did see some improvement, but I was still caught up in doctors and therapy and I think the pregnancy on top of the other pain scared me. I wondered how can I care for a baby in this condition? Up until April 24' I listened everyday, so about 8 months I listened daily and saw big improvements in my well-being and my mindset. So I stopped listening daily and went to every few days or less. Then after July I restarted maybe in August, and since then seen the biggest improvements in my quality of life and capability and capacity to do more everyday stuff without fear and sometimes without pain! This is nothing short of a miracle to me. I'm finding myself enjoying the tiniest things like clapping or the blue sky, or seeing my kids play and interact. My stamina has increased and my mental focus is growing. I cry less often, but still allow myself to cry when it comes because I think I went through a lot and the loss, disappointment and disillusionment still hurts sometimes. I'm still on my longer than expected road to complete healing, but my hope is being restored and I'm surprising myself sometimes daily with what I can do or how I feel makes me smile with thankfulness. Sometimes I'm just simply happy to be alive. My husband was my number one supporter through this season. When others asked about me he often said I was his hero because he's the only one that witnessed all that I went through and saw me keep trying and showing up to life. Jesus is who I held onto in this process and ultimately I know He was holding onto me in the ups and downs and in the utter losses and devastation I found HIM. Sometimes I thought He left completely, but He was my strength when I had no one. He showed His face through many believers through their compassion and kindness that was other worldly. He was my everything because I had nothing else, or at least that's what it felt like. And now I know that it's a gift to experience Him as all you have, even if the circumstances are dire. The Word says we are complete in Him lacking nothing, (Colossians 2:10). I may have lost a lot of time, friends, and family experiences but in the process I never lost Him, and I was never alone. This month I started a new part of my health journey, and it's been something that I came across in my process 2 years ago. I look forward to sharing more on that in the future whether my experience is good or bad, I know I'll learn. And I'm grateful that I have the ability and opportunity to continue to heal.
I know it's a new day yet there are still days my soul struggles with the memories and feelings from the past, but I'm looking out of my front windshield at what's ahead of me and no longer out my rearview mirror. It's a chapter in the story of my life. Thank God there are more chapters to be written and God never allows one season of your life to determine your destiny. Otherwise He wouldn't be called a Redeemer. I chose to believe that God can make all things, including our pain and even our sin work together for our good and His glory. The Bible is littered with miraculous stories of redemption and I can't wait to read mine. Cheers to the truth of Jeremiah 29:11 that says "For I know the thoughts that I think towards you says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil to give you a future and a hope." It's been a long road for sure, but there's an even longer road ahead of me paved with peace and hope. Whew and for now I'm glad that retelling is over.
