Stress, grief, illness and how letting go of everything helped me get my life back.
Summer 2021: The Virus that Shall Not Be Named.
This is a continuation of part 1 of our health journey you can check that out here. I want to preface this by saying I do not have a magic formula for regaining health. No happy juice, no mindset mantras to snap you out of the long dark night of the soul. You won’t find any shocking before and after photos here. But I’ve learned some things along the way about getting your life back.
A few years ago, The Virus That Shall Not Be Named (henceforth, TVTSNBN), starting wrecking plans the globe over. We had come back from Costa Rica for what was supposed to be a 4 month visit and ended up staying stateside for the foreseeable future.
Our family made it to August of 2021 without contracting TVTSNBN, but when we did…we got hit hard. I was in good health and had no co-morbidities so I wasn’t really that worried. I had run 6 miles the day I started running a fever. I was training for a half-marathon: my lungs were good to go. Then I was down with a fever for 11 days. I didn’t suffer extreme respiratory duress while I was actively infected, but within about three weeks I started this wheezing cough that would go on for 18 months.
Winter 2022
Although I got knocked down pretty hard, I “bounced back” from the vid relatively easily. From September to December I was feeling normal-ish but it was becoming harder to stay awake all day. And the cough was always present. But in December, something started to drastically shift. I was achey and sore. I was so fatigued I could barely make it out of bed. To walk up one flight of stairs took genuine effort on my part. By 10 am I would need a nap. And I mean an immediate nap, as in, I am so weak and fatigued that if I do not lay down, I will pass out. And I would sleep, sometimes even just 20 minutes, and that would be enough to bounce back.
This would happen multiple times throughout the day. Sometimes feelings of absolute despair would wash over me. The most peculiar thing was that I was gaining weight by the day. I gained 40lbs in a matter of several months. My doctor ran all the tests… I’m accustomed to blood work-but this was a lot even for me. Everything was pretty normal. He told me to eat more and get some rest. #foreshadowing
Spring 2022
A few months later, the periods of extreme fatigue had gotten worse. Night sweats, the kind where you must change the sheets, were common. The tired by day, wired by night, wake up at 3 am so hungry I might throw up was increasing. Anxious while simultaneously feeling some very low lows.
By May of 2022 I was like something has to give.
My doctor talked to me about my stress level. It had been elevated for years.
Five years prior, we had lost our son during pre-term labor, in addition to the grief, I endured immense medical trauma in the fight to save my life during labor. Plus, the almost dying thing really messed with me and tossed a bucket of guilt-filled gasoline on my motherhood. We had already made the decision to go into missions at that point so the idea that we could change plans, slow down and let my body heal—it didn’t even occur to us. Lots of thoughts on that for a later time.
We started traveling the country to raise support, sold a house we loved and a bunch of stuff, moved internationally to a country where we knew no one and did not speak the language, learned the language, and returned stateside to be met with a global pandemic. And like the cortisol driven crazies that we were, we decided a global pandemic was a great time to reno a house, wait…make that two houses. Remodeling houses was a great use of our time since the country we were desperately trying to get back to had shut its borders. Plans changed, and our dreams put on hold. We decided that our family needed roots and so we decided to stay stateside.
I don’t want to paint the picture that I was this constantly depressed person, I wasn’t. I was joyful and happy a lot of the time. There was lots of change and excitement to keep my mind occupied. Traveling, transition, big life changes back to back. Which made it easier to ignore the cracks in the foundation.
But you can’t out-run complete overwhelm and unresolved grief forever.
I’m not throwing a pity party, I’m just saying it was a lot and I didn’t even realize it because we were just in it, ya know? Hindsight, amiright?
So in case I lost you in the time line….we are back to spring of 2022. Remodeling house #3 in 2 years, this time to stay in. My doctor asked me to track my food, he was thinking I was not eating enough. I protested that there was no way.
There was indeed a way. When I began to track, I was in a severe calorie deficit. I was struggling to get to 800 calories a day. Which, in case you’ve been brainwashed by a teen diet magazine, is shockingly low for an adult woman. Like…toddlers eat more than that. And I knew that…I just wasn’t paying attention.
My grandma had just passed away, another point of grief and stress.
And, to make matters more interesting, I was named the executor of my grandmother’s estate.
I was grieving, exhausted, overweight and overwhelmed. But my options were basically to start eating more or be hospitalized.
** This is the point where I will say if you are struggling with an eating disorder or disordered eating—talk to a professional. You need someone on your side who can see reality when you cannot. Doctor, therapist and spouse/friend/family member needs to be in on your journey.**
I had over trained, under eaten and stretched myself way to thin for the entirety of my adult life. And the bill had arrived.
She let herself go.
An unfortunate but common phrase some people feel the need to utter when seeing a woman who isn’t meeting their ideal beauty standards-whatever they may be is:
She let herself go.
We are fed messaging that anything less that whatever your culture’s designated “best” is, is letting yourself go. And we’ve heard it since we were young. I had spent a lifetime trying to not “let myself go.”
And for the first time in my life, I rejected the notion.
I looked in the mirror one day at the top of my grandmother’s Victorian staircase and caught a pale and malaise glimpse of myself. I thought “wow, you’ve let yourself go.” But I heard an immediate whisper, “No you didn’t. You’re holding on for dear life.”
It was true. I wasn’t letting myself go, I was holding on for dear life.
Thank God for what I believe was the Holy Spirit’s quick correction, it immediately gave me language for the journey that ensued.
So, if the fit body and a made-up face had to go for a time, so be it. If the plans that involve really anyone but our tiny family have to be put on hold for a season, then theyre on hold. If the house had to go for a little while, well then go with God dear laundry pile.
The fear of “letting myself go” i.e.—being human, is what had gotten me into this pit of despair in the first place and I made up my mind that I was done with it.
Making up my mind was one thing, untangling it was another.
Letting go for good.
So what did I do?
Started by letting go of anything that was standing in the way of goodness.
Overhauled my life, but not in the flashy, social media kind of way. I began letting go of a lot of unrealistic expectations for myself and everyone else. Little by little, letting go of perfection and adding in more beauty and goodness.
More whole food, less exercise. More protein, more fat, more intentional delicious desserts. More sleep, less screens. More facing the grief, less running from it. More “Sorry, I cant” and “Thanks for the invite but we won’t be there.” More family movie nights. More bike rides after dinner. More praying, less talking. More nature, less DIY-ing. More therapy and CrossFit. More painting, board games and coffee by the fire. Friends stopping over less solid plans. Cookies for neighbors and creek time. More fishing and hikes, less grind. More family, less events. More writing, less posting. More candlelight. More gardening, music and great books.
More living.
More worship.
And little by little: the fog has lifted. The rest returned. The light is back.
I suppose it was never gone, but its hard to see a candle in the midst of fog.
I still have some health things to figure out but a solid 85% of my problems were from not eating enough and running on absolute empty. So, if you’re in the pit of despair, I would start with more food, more sleep and an outside walk every day no matter the weather.
I’m not saying there aren’t seasons of “the grind” sometimes ya just buckle down and do the dang thing.
But this wasn’t it. Five to seven years of unrelenting grind had done ground to a halt. God was uprooting many core beliefs I had held for so, so long. Wrong beliefs I held about Him, myself, and my role in making the world go round. So many things learned and let go in this season.
I don’t have a magic formula for getting your life back after grief and illness wreck it.
But I know eating some real food, with actual protein and fat is a good start. Make a counseling appointment. Go for a walk. Call a friend. Read your Bible, hold tight to your family of faith. All good places to start.
It might mean letting go of a lot to let the light back in but its worth it.
The best news is that through all of the letting go, God doesn’t.
Leave a Reply