What the medical professionals won't tell you...
How giving up going to the doctor actually saved me.
*Mental Health Trigger Warning: s#icidal ideation mention in post.
This isn't medical advice and I'm not a medical professional, but I am someone that figured out how to heal a chronic mystery illness that stumped every western medicine doctor I went to (like 10 to 15+ doctors, lost count) over the span of five agonizing years in different parts of South Carolina, in Florida and at least two in Oregon (I moved a lot).
I'm NOT recommending that everyone give up going to the doctor, but if you're repeatedly hitting brick wall after brick wall when trying to heal your body, something may need to change.
I do believe there are plenty of benefits, practical applications and necessities for western medicine—I'm not fully anti—but when it comes to chronic illness, western medicine is missing a key piece and I'm determined to be so loud about it, because it's a crucial part of our health that the medical field, at large, is bypassing. That is: the body-mind connection and the importance of nervous system regulation. Life is a living hell when you're sick and don't have this insight.
I was sick on and off, almost on a monthly basis at times, for five years. Doctors had no clue what to do, nor what was causing the symptoms. I was determined to get better after being so miserable, so I'm sharing some of the unconventional realizations I've had during healing.
I don't feel the need to share every detail about what I experienced when I was sick, but I've seen some shit. I'll elaborate slightly about the illness to expand on how I came to the conclusions that I have about the medical and pharmaceutical industries. The symptoms go beyond even what I'm about to mention, but here's a glimpse. No, it wasn't cancer, it wasn't even anything truly diagnosable, just a plethora of different painful issues recurring several times monthly: insane rashes, severe joint pain, blinding headaches, daily exhaustion beyond belief, gross tummy issues (not above TMI here lol), so much pain I could barely walk on the bad flair-up days, grave depression, and not to mention this was happening while I was 18-23, young as fuck. Not some old person!!!
This was an extremely bad time in my life, even if I could play it off here and there. The depression just kept getting worse, as did the substance abuse. But I was in so much pain, so often and for so many years, I didn't know what else to do besides use. I drank a lotttt. Then, I found out I also really liked cocaine. My body didn't hurt anymore. My mind didn't feel trapped for the time I was drunk or high (until I woke up hungover and repeated that cycle for years, oops).
(continued below)
T.W. - mention of mental health struggles below
It's beyond frustrating, it's shattering both physically and mentally, to be in such pain and no one has answers to help. This was my reality of being sick, not just for a week or so, but for years on end. Doctors could and would give me pills that eased the flair-up symptoms, but never got to the root cause. The symptoms endlessly came back. I didn't even feel like a human. I didn't have close friendships, I didn't enjoy much of anything and I felt so beyond hopeless. It was truly more than I could bear. My mental health was declining just as rapidly as my physical health. The suicidal ideations started probably a year or two into this. The longer the mystery illness went on, the more strongly I felt compelled to leave (like leave earth, for good).
Writing this now, I kinda can't believe I went through all that. But it gave me SO much wisdom and freedom as I continuously pursued healing (which took a long time to discover, several years, but so worth the digging).
I'm extremely thankful I never acted further on what I was thinking about so I can share this with you now.
Even though I felt hopeless for so long, a teeny tiny intuitive part of me told me there had to be a path for healing available, even when all the evidence suggested otherwise. I felt crazy for believing that healing was possible, but I wanted it so badly.
I can't tell you how many Google searches were made, how many books bought and borrowed, or number of podcasts listened to, over how many years while I was trying to dig up ANY clue that could remotely give me an idea for a next step to getting better.
I wanted "feeling good" to be my norm so badly—so badly so that I did, in fact, heal my body (and my sick head). And all without any medical professional's help. We can go into how I found healing soon and the specific practices that transformed everything, but for now...
This is what I realized is wrong with western medicine:
Medical professionals, whether it’s in the field of mental health or physical health, at a large scale, are not integrating the connection of mind, body and spirit in a way that effectively heals the body, rather than just alleviates symptoms temporarily. In western medicine, our body systems are treated separately even though it's one body: cardiologist, gynecologist, gastroenterologist, pulmonologist... see my point? Sure, these are specialties and are useful in their own regard, but something is MISSING. We're collectively riddled with inflammation, attention issues, exhaustion, digestive issues, overwhelming stress and more.
The integrative way, supplementing treatments with a more holistic approach, is now called for if we want to experience impactful and lasting healing. What do I mean by integrative and holistic? Stepping back and looking more at the big picture of the body. When I'm working too closely on a painting, when my eyes are an inch or two away from the canvas, I can easily (and often) lose track of what I'm fixing. I have to take a several steps back to see what's really going on. I think doctors need to do that too, especially in relation to our digestive system if that's not their area of expertise. Even when it doesn't seem like the gut is contributing to any other factors within the body, its state of functioning is one of the biggest determiners of our wellbeing, or lack thereof.
I'm not saying that doctors don't know what they're talking about. In their areas of specialty, I know they know their shit. They are highly trained. But the training curriculum set forth is lacking the holistic integration of the body as one unit. This is the responsibility of universities and college institutions, not the responsibility of the students that go on to become doctors. I'm not blaming doctors here, but I am blaming the academia and who it's funded by. (But if doctors realize something is missing and don't do any digging out of apathy, or worse, straight up deny proof of breakthroughs, then they are also complicit in this "sickcare" system!).
A big reason for the lack of concern towards people's healing is greed. There is so much money in pharmaceuticals, it’s aggressively more profitable to keep people sick than it is to actually heal them, so we're made sure to be censored from advancements in science and medicine. Revolutionary developments and sciences are kept suppressed or blatantly denied. Meanwhile, we’re kept sick. I don’t believe doctors usually, themselves, maliciously withhold any healing remedies, nor the majority of sales people in pharma–they’re not given this knowledge when they’re educated. Again, I blame the suppression on the academic institutions and their accomplices, the pharmaceutical industry, politicians and... well... that's a different rabbit hole.
BUT ANYWAYS: There's not enough emphasis in the medical field on how the gut impacts our health and how the state of our nervous system drives our wellbeing.
I so badly want people to realize that healing weird mystery illnesses are possible. Chronic health issues are more concentrated within the gut and nervous system than you may realize. Again, I'm not a medical professional here and everything written is my own opinion. Our bodies are SO intelligent, naturally. They know how to balance themselves and operate in a state of health. Our world—with processed foods, lessening leisure time, increasing inflation, mounting stress and increasing noise—is not set up to be a supportive environment for us to thrive in health and wellness. (This is also strategic by the Powers-That-Be, lol.) But don't let society and these big players in the medical industries and beyond psych you out from a full and thriving life. Healing is really, truly available.
Google will tell you that the "alternative" medicine options are pseudoscience, but they're not alternative—many of these methods are the original ancient medicines we've lost touch with (also purposefully burried—so. many. rabbit. holes.).
Many times I seem crazy to the people around me because I am wild and free, to a degree that most never come close to touching. And why do I act like that? Why is everything a joke to me? How and why don't I care about people's opinions? Why don't I care about status or college degrees or following the other boring steps society lays out for us? Because I spent years of my life wanting to die. And then I got better. And now I am PULSING with the most insane aliveness and creativity that feels actually superhuman. I had so little life in me when I was sick, that now, I can't help but to fully access the vitality that's in my veins. I want to experience EVERYTHING (except skydiving, pass.). I LOVE being alive and expanding. I love showing myself and others what's possible. It's just so fun being here and being sober.
(I'm writing this with such overflowing joy, even as my rent is over a week late, HA. I have no clue where the money is coming from and I'm still so simply happy and grateful to be on earth I'm not even sweating it!! I don't recommend everyone to live as risky with their finances as I do though ;) Entreprenuers you get it. Read more about LATE RENT here.)
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