Life Has Been Exhaustive

I texted my best friend to ask if she was available to listen – I needed her to hear me. Everything was bubbling up and I didn’t want feedback or advice. For more than 20 minutes I sobbed as the tears fell from my eyes. Everyone needs a best friend like her – she was present, listened, told me she loved me and to call if I needed her for the rest of the day. The emotional exhaustion was raw the past few days, ready to erupt like a volcano.

For more than two decades I have been trying to piece myself back to health – and it’s due to 9/11. Maybe you have experienced something similar? I have known deep in my bones that my cortisol levels were high and have remained high since 9/11. Cortisol, the stress hormone, wasn’t a word in my vocabulary until years after 9/11 – and honestly, I didn’t understand the complexities of the body in the way I do now. The multitude of symptoms forced me to explore what shock and trauma does to the body. Determined, I was not going to stop until I understood what the F*CK was going on and what to do about it. My life had been unraveling and I had limited emotional capacity after 9/11, however, I begrudgingly had to come to terms that my body wouldn’t function the same. Not only did the cells change, but it altered the way my entire body functioned – EVERYTHING – organs, systems, fascia, gut-brain connection, nervous system, sleep, even my brain and it rocked my core beliefs.

I was stirring late one night, until almost 3am. Replaying everything. Frustration and the overwhelming exhaustion I’d been dealing with for over two decades – and pretty much going at it alone. Feeling no one understood my journey to the depth that I have had to struggle with has been extremely isolating.

There are very few natural doctors who have the depth, knowledge, wisdom, years of experience with the “unsolvable” and “rare” cases to be able to look at health complexities such as mine from a broader whole-body perspective. I’ve had one person in my life, a holistic chiropractor, practicing more than 40 years, who is more than her title. She treats the physical, mental, emotional and spiritual – looking at the mind, body and spirit as one. It's the only way a body can truly heal. I was extremely resistant when I first met her in 1999 to understand or even believe in what she did. I was interested in a quick fix as long as it required nothing from me. I didn’t understand the enormous role emotions played in affecting the well-being of the body and how they could cause physical misalignment, subconscious thoughts, blockages and other random symptoms. It took me a long time to adjust my thinking as to how this is possible.

She has become a close friend and we now laugh about how stubborn I was in the early days of her treating me. She also reminds me of how my thinking has changed, all the deep work I’ve done to transform my life and how many others I’ve helped – that I am someone who walks the walk. But I am also human and have crappy days and that’s exactly what happened late one night which flowed into the following morning.

I recently worked with a health care provider whose intake and testing was very specific and in-depth to help solve this mystery. She ordered extensive bloodwork, hormone tests, including a cortisol test, more thorough than one I took years before. This one had me up at 2:30am spitting saliva into a tube in the dark – no lights on – so it didn’t affect my melatonin level. I was spitting into a tube every couple of hours though it felt as if it was every 10 minutes. Also requested was another specialized test, which she surmised, might be the root of the intestinal issues I’ve had for the past 22 years since stopping the SSRI’s I was prescribed following 9/11.

This practitioner’s report was so thorough, it confirmed much of what I felt was going on with my body but couldn’t articulate. Reading it, brought me to my knees. FINALLY, I felt validated! Despite meditating almost daily for more than 16 years, doing visualizations, energy work, breathwork and humming among many other techniques regularly, it still hadn’t been enough to bring down the high cortisol levels.

Trauma is a huge wrecking ball to the entire operating system of the body. It expands beyond what most people realize – it runs deep. I’m part of the World Trade Center Health Monitoring Program and part of the annual testing is standard bloodwork. Interestingly, stress hormones aren’t tested. Yet, stress hormones get activated in a fight-flight-freeze situation and 9/11 was exactly that. It created an unimaginable level of stress and it doesn’t magically disappear.

In my experience, many doctors, if the surface level tests look good, they don’t go digging. Most throw a pill at it, hoping it will be enough and the patient will keep coming back for refills. This isn’t a dig at doctors – this is my lived, very real and personal experience. It’s never been enough for me – I need answers. Not answers to placate me. I want more. I want to understand. I want to learn. I want to get to the root. I’m not a health expert; however, I am the expert in my body. I continue to expand my knowledge as I uncover more. I deserve to be healthy and I won’t stop until I figure it out. However, it’s been EXHAUSTING – physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually and financially.

Trying to figure this out has been a full-time job. It’s been on my brain almost 24/7. Trying to find ways, modalities, the latest technologies, practitioners, healers and from all over the globe to work with so I can live a healthy life for the remaining time I have on this earth. If you look at me, I look healthy on the outside but the residual impact of shock, panic, fear and lack of safety I experienced created a physical domino effect that I’m still working through, almost 25 years later, in addition to a COPD diagnosis.

A team of well-trained and educated practitioners that focus on whole-body wellness are imperative – individuals that "think outside the box" who solved real life, rare and complicated health challenges that required depth, research, applied tools and wisdom. An “influencer” pushing supplements or the latest trendy course isn’t going to solve your body’s response to decades of trauma.

There is no quick fix, it’s a collaborative effort and you must participate. It takes resolve, perseverance, commitment, determination and patience to move forward when you feel like giving up. There were many times I felt alone, overwhelmed and not understood; however, I always picked myself up because I’m a fighter. I am a warrior and this is the realness of 9/11 and how it affected my life.

If you can relate, know you are not alone.