I suffered from chronic fatigue syndrome and what I thought was adrenal fatigue for over 12 years, with varying degrees of severity. In the beginning I was able to function well enough to maintain a job, friendships and a relationship. I was "getting by" and trying to live a normal life, but eventually I couldn't hold it all together anymore.

 

I was never taught how to work with stress, how to set boundaries and value myself, or how to regulate my emotions and nervous system. As a result, my body accumulated stress energy until it could no longer cope. In December of 2014, I was rear ended at low speed at an intersection, leaving no damage to my car. This very minor car accident was the straw that broke the camel's back. Over the next two weeks, my nervous system and body fractured and I free fell into an abyss of total dysfunction and instability.

 

I was suddenly bedbound and I lost the ability to work, to leave the house, to tolerate other people in my space and to even take care of myself. I was suddenly dependent, confused and terrified about what was happening to my body and emotions. I was unprepared for the roller coaster of intensity that my nervous system was experiencing as it expressed hypersensitivities to "everything".

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I was experiencing the following symptoms:

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• Hypersensitivities to sound, light, movement, smell, temperature, vision, food and even electromagnetic frequencies.

• Gastroparesis

• Gastritis

• Nausea

• Reflux

• Orthostatic Intolerance / POTS

• Blacking Out / Passing Out

• Muscle & Joint Pain

• Constant Twitching

• Convulsions

• Insomnia

• Sore Throat / Flu Like Symptoms

• Brain Fog

• Anxiety

• Panic

• Suicidal Ideation

 

Though I felt totally out of control, I was determined that I could and would regain my health and so my journey began. I spent several years exploring every healing modality imaginable, and invested thousands of dollars I didn't have, on many things that didn't help at all and a few that did. I started out with a very external focus of healing and eventually shifted to a more internal focus of healing. In my personal experience, I've come to identify early childhood trauma and chronic stress as the foundational, root cause that eventually led to the physical manifestation of illness (CFS/Adrenal Fatigue).

 

There have definitely been some external, physical interventions that have aided in my healing such as cavitation surgery and upper cervical chiropractic, but nothing was as powerful or impactful as working with my emotions and nervous system. Learning how to resource myself, recognize my needs, set boundaries, and build nervous system capacity and flexibility, has changed my life. This process continues to expand for me each and every day.