Our Bodies, Really Do, Keep The Score

The difference in just my face alone is remarkable within a few months of beginning treatment and nutrition changes!

The Beginning

A little over a year ago I read a book called The Body Keeps The Score, and it quite literally changed my life. I soaked up every word, crying through most of it as facts and years of research laid out the impact of trauma on both your mind and body. For the first time, all of the missing links connected in my journey of healing and connection to my body. I felt as though I was reading my sisters and I’s story in the form of provable research and other survivors stories.

But, the beginning of this intentional fight for wholeness and healing started six years ago, and I’ve never looked back. Fully committed to not just surviving from what I came from but learning how to thrive in the life ahead of me. But, when the beginning of your life lays a broken foundation you quite literally nearly almost have to entirely start over. Demolish the old patterns and ways of engaging in the world, and lay a stronger, more thoughtful foundation for the life you believe possible.

A year later,  I have experienced the impact of this book, and how it would begin to alter the landscape of my health and future. It’s a story that is just getting started.

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The Silent Defeat

I can remember the days almost as if they happened yesterday. It happened suddenly, over the course of the summer I was eighteen. I began to feel exhausted, mildly depressed and gained weight rapidly.

Something felt intensely off physically – but I was young, had been on my own for a little over a year and didn’t know the steps to take to seek help. A major part of my story is that I moved out of my home two weeks after my seventeenth birthday amidst chaotic circumstances, graduated high school a year early and was thrown into adulthood. The collateral damage would in part, become my health over the course of the next decade.  Life had been so intense around me, that I thought perhaps the health issues were my fault, the depression stemming from historical family struggles with mental health and the weight gain completely the repercussion of something I did wrong.  

Over the last thirteen years I have lived most days with a varying level of intense fatigue, mild depression and a deep struggle with weight. Some years were worse than others, and I can look back at photos and tell you when I felt the worst, and the days where I just surrendered to the defeat of it all.

But, for so many years I tried various things, but never pushed a doctor to investigate what might be wrong. Five years ago, after I stepped away from Invisible Children and experienced a mini-health crisis, I was diagnosed with Hypothyroidism, all of my levels critical. Example: your TSH hormone should never be higher than 5.5, mine came in at 150.

 I was prescribed daily medication and over the course of the last five years have gone in every 12 weeks for blood work and battled fluctuating thyroid levels, never quite stabilizing. I tried various things, but constantly felt defeated. Convinced how I felt, looked and was struggling was simply my normal.

So, I pushed myself hard every day. In all ways. In life, work and in my emotional state. Mustering up all the grit I could, internally talking myself out of depressive days, working longer hours even when I was so fatigued I felt faint, learning how to live life at the low functioning physical state that had become my normal.

Yet, over the years would look in the mirror, and not feel any type of ugliness, but a sincere “that is not my face”, as I stared at my reflection. A tinge of sadness of not seeing the me I felt to be, reflected back would appear. Not knowing what to do with those feelings, I would tuck them away and go about the day.

Reclaiming Power

I’ve learned that this is part of the devastation of trauma. It strips away layers of your inherent self-worth and grit to fight for yourself. Because, the impact of whatever pain it came in the form of, told your mind and body that you were unsafe – which for me and many others I’ve met along the way – translated into you were not worth fighting for. I thought I fought back by being smart and strong, but was never aware enough to connect to how sick my body was. My heart aches at all the days, years I have felt so unwell, how hard I was on myself for that reality.

But, knowledge is power. So is digging into the core of the things that destabilize you and fighting for greater truth. I have been gifted with an amazing counselor in the past three years and had access to an equally amazing holistic doctor in Nashville, who both empowered my healing journey. They have been key champions in this process, and I am so thankful.

Over the last year and a half, I have been actively working to understand the impact of trauma on my mind and body. I felt as though with reading The Body Keeps The Score, I had been given the keys to a treasure map and I have been in pursuit ever since.

Which led to this last Fall and Winter when I experienced intense depression for several months. It was out of character and not the kind I had walked through before. This was different. It kept knocking me out, and though I equated it to the stress of my job and other major life experiences – after three months I knew there was something deeply wrong. But, this time I knew to advocate for myself. To ask for help. I had reconnected to my body in a deep enough way that I could tell the difference of this wave of depression. Something wasn't right. 

Be Your Own Health Advocate (and ask for help along the way)

In March, I went in for routine blood work and because I stated that I had been suffering with depression I met with a Nurse Practitioner unexpectedly. After reviewing all of my recent labs, talking with me for a few minutes, she asked if I had ever been tested for PCOS. I had not, though my mom had thought for years that I might have it. She said that she felt strongly I needed to meet with an endocrinologist immediately, and she wrote a referral for me to see one in DC.

Fast forward a month of various and intensive testing, blood work, sugar tests and doctors visits to early May. My extensive labs were in and I met with my endocrinologist in DC on a Thursday afternoon.

I sat in her office as she shared with me that I had PCOS (Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome), Hashimitos Disease (autoimmune disease that attacks your thyroid) and Insulin Resistance (Metabolic Syndrome), and that my Hypothyroidism was a result of those long standing issues. She then shared that based on my medical history, labs and family history that I had most likely been struggling with Insulin Resistance since mid-teens, PCOS since I was 18/19 and Hashimotos followed soon after.

All three exhibit symptoms of fatigue, depression, weight gain, and many others daunting symptoms. She described what the onset of each looked like, and I almost broke down in tears.

My doctor went on to share that she was sincerely shocked I had not had a severe health crisis yet, or that I was as high functioning as I appeared to be based on my lab work. Then she looked at me and said “these issues are not your fault”.

It was, it is, breakthrough.

Four months ago I started specific medication over a staggered time frame, made huge adjustments to my nutrition lifestyle – and have watched my body and health change rapidly.

In the span of a few short months on medication for insulin, PCOS and adjusting my nutrition to treat Hashimotos, I have more energy than I can ever remember. Which feels even more crazy because I am in a high impact sprint towards two massive events happening in late September. I have less time to rest, sleep or exercise than normal, and have more consistent energy than ever before.

It’s as if someone woke me up energy wise.  Every day I have a moment where I think, I didn’t know I could feel like this! Realizing on daily basis how low the threshold I’ve existed at has been.

These diagnoses have given me the knowledge needed to begin the fight for my health. I am so thankful. Now I know what I am up against. Now it’s a joyful battle for complete healing and wellness, and the journey is just beginning. It’s one I am all in for.

Because, I already feel so much better!

Because, I already see my face again staring back at me for the first time in over a decade.

Because, my depression is gone. 

Because, I am looking at the years of internal shaming dialogue and physical struggle and asking my heart and body for forgiveness, for all the years I let it suffer.

The landscape of my life will look very different moving forward as I learn how to live in wellness, rest and advocating for my personal health. I can barely wait to see what happens because of this radical health breakthrough.

I have learned in the hardest ways possible – our bodies do really keep the score. But, our bodies are also resilient and powerful. They have been designed to heal and restore.