Dying Inside, Again

Diminished. Irrelevant. Unnecessary. Incapable. Right now, those are the words that describe me. My inability to engage in life, which I'm working so hard to change and thought I was improving on, is simply inadequate. Nobody's got the time or the patience to sit back and wait for me to get it together. And why would they? I've already squandered enough of both to suck up everyone's lifetime.

Is there a soul on the planet I can talk to? Because right now I feel alone and isolated, like a woman existing on an island of herself. But that island has no fruit left on her trees, and the wildlife have all swum or flown away. So I sit and stare out at the sea. Starving. Wondering if anyone is ever going to rescue me. Knowing full well they won't. I'm responsible for every ounce of my survival and can't even feed myself.

This is what year thirteen with an invisible, chronic illness has done to me. Annihilated my self-worth, estranged me from those I know and love, suppressed a life that was supposed to get lived, and turned a vibrant and capable woman into a blithering, pathetic pile of weakness.

It didn't have to be this way. It didn't have to get this bad. I could've gotten sick and not lost my mind. I could have, at least once on this thirteen-year journey, encountered a doctor who didn't treat my life-altering insomnia and muscular pain like a t-shirt I decided to don because I liked the way it felt. Is it a myth, or are there people who get this illness whose friends and family rally together and lift them up? Are those people accepted for who they have now become and not persecuted for never being enough?

I'm retreating further into myself. Every time I get this low, a piece of me dies and stays here. There's less of me to pick up and move forward with. Right now I wonder if I'll ever be able to move forward at all. Thirteen years ago my life splintered off into a parallel universe. Although it seemed like I was still part of the normal world, my truth no longer existed there. Now I'm floating in an abyss of madness existing somewhere between my truth and everybody else's world. My reality is pecking at my flesh, nibbling on my toes, eating chunks of the goodness that was once my soul. At the pace I'm going it won't be long before there's nothing left inside me at all.

Thanks for joining,

Leah

Healthy Burnout

I don't know if it slowly crept up on me or hit me like a freight train. All I know is I woke up last week utterly unable to continue spending the majority of my time in my kitchen. To fully understand how I got here, I've got to rewind to last April. Picture it: Los Angeles, 2017, 4:30 a.m. I was sitting on my sofa sobbing because I couldn't sleep, hadn't slept in I don't remember how long, and was still getting sicker following my relapse in 2015. I was so out of control of my circumstances, desperate doesn't even begin to cover it. So through my tears I grabbed my computer and dialed up Amazon. I'd been hearing about a revolutionary book that uses nutrition to heal mystery illnesses for some time and, quite frankly, short of joining a cult was willing to try anything to regain my grasp on my health. So I spent $15 and ordered the book.

After I warily stared at it for a few days, I finally picked up the darn thing and started reading. By the time I turned the last page, I was ready to give it a whirl. Thus began the indexing and cross-referencing and researching of various nutritional supplements to find out how to treat my myriad symptoms in the most efficient and affordable way possible. There were significant foods I had to eliminate from my diet and others I had to figure out how to add. This book preached veganism, which I didn't even begin to try, but ultimately I took what was already a healthy diet and turned each meal into a supercharged dose of nutritional medicine. And what I did was a half-ass attempt compared to what was prescribed...

It's been nine months and I'm feeling worlds better. I'm also severely burnt out on nutrition as a concept and want to set fire to my kitchen. I want to throw my juicer and blender off a cliff. I want to stop buying produce and eat tater tots and queso dip for dinner every night, followed by a midnight snack at In-N-Out. I want biscuits and gravy for breakfast, not a fruit-and-algae-infused smoothie. The thought of pushing one more stick of celery through my juicer makes me want to yank out my hair by the root...

All this animosity has been brewing inside me and it finally roared last week. Clarity came to me as I thought back on the early days of learning how to eat healthy. Back in 2011, the number one commitment I made to myself was to make slow, reasonable changes I could stick to for the rest of my life. But 2017 me was so desperate to stabilize my immune system, I delved head-first into a "diet." The long-term result of this diet was I became food obsessed. It was too restrictive to last a lifetime and inspired cheating that was far worse than what I ate before I began. Which is why diets don't flippin' work. Never one to throw out the baby with the bathwater, I'm reassessing and adjusting. After all, I am feeling worlds better. There are many beneficial components I'm keeping. But I'm also moving forward with balance and the firm knowledge that it is only what I can sustain that can sustain me.

Thanks for joining,

Leah