I wanted to share a few things I haven’t talked a lot about lately on the blog… and in doing so, I’ll be touching on my current journey with my mental health, my physical health, and my relationships with others. My hope is that some of you reading will not only be able to relate- but to be encouraged and emboldened.

Back in the day when I used to host this blog on Blogger instead of WordPress , before it grew into what it is now, I used to write a lot about my physical health and different foods I was trying to work into my pantry. I wrote about other stuff too but this topic was common. Today I won’t be talking about recipes or specific foods, but I do want to talk about something that’s changed in my physical health and to take a step away from my body and look at things holistically. This is an invitation to take a look into my life, but also an invitation to those of you reading to consider the points in your own life where many different journeys converge and connect.

Let me start with something that’s been a huge impact on my life…

For the past 5ish years, I’ve woken up nauseous almost every single morning. It started off as a day here or there, and then escalated to almost every single day. This has been attributed to my various health issues more generally. I was told things by my doctors like “oh, that can just happen to some people with PCOS (Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome)” and “Well, your mental health, what seems like PTSD, seems to be causing you lots of panic and anxiety, and that stress is probably what’s making you feel unwell”. Despite these musings, I never really got a clear or straight answer on why it was occurring. Just a lot of musings. Regardless, this has become my default setting, my uncomfortable normal.

This has meant not eating breakfast, sometimes puking in the morning, and generally feeling ill until about noon. This has meant I may or may not eat lunch. If I did it was later in the day and if I woke up late sometimes I’d feel ill longer- although sometimes I could sleep late enough to not feel ill. Instead of explaining myself when people would ask me how I was feeling in the mornings or asking what was wrong, I started to tell people I just didn’t eat breakfast. It seemed silly, embarrassing, and was incredibly frustrating to try and explain an experience that has no real explanation. But really… the truth is that there have been many mornings where I have just been completely miserable and am just trying to truck along.

The past week or so I’ve been feeling funny in the morning. Not sick, not nauseous or uncomfortable, just funny. A couple days ago I realized what the feeling actually is… What I am feeling is HUNGRY!

I have been feeling like this for so long that I couldn’t remember what it felt like to be HUNGRY in the mornings! How sad… and yet- how fortunate! To have this part of my life, this part of my health, suddenly restored means more than I can put into words. Something has shifted, something has changed for the better. Whoever is out there praying for me, know that your prayers are working. I cannot help but thank God for this! I wasn’t even praying for this, but it feels like a divine intervention. Never in a million years did I expect to be experiencing this, the feeling unwell for 5 years nor the sudden resolution! I had just accepted that this is how life was and would be. While I both hope and pray that this is a long term resolution, I will take however long it lasts.

I also wonder if this is also a result of all of the hard work I have been doing for my mental health and wellness the past few months.

Something I haven’t shared on the blog yet (and don’t worry, I’m getting there, I’ve been taking my time thinking through when and how) is what has been happening with my mental health. This summer I touched on some of my holistic wellness goals, including purposefully working on aspects of my physical, spiritual, and mental health– Read Here- but I haven’t really been sharing here about what’s going on in those journeys since that post.

So let’s touch on the big one: I’ve been pursuing therapy through BetterHelp, and I feel like a lot of big things and good things have happened. None of the things have been easy. I’ve been working through a lot, which can feel heavy at times- nobody likes to feel like a bleeding heart. And that’s been me! I’ve often felt like I’m carrying around this huge oversized heart on my back… and it’s this big and super broken, constantly bleeding heart that is just leaking all over the place. It’s just leaking everywhere I go… and all I could do was carry it around and pray for it to be healed but there was nothing to actually stop the flow. Because it’s so big, I couldn’t carry it and bandage it even if someone tried to hand me some gauze.

Now, with therapy, it’s beginning to feel like it’s bleeding a little bit less at times. It’s been feeling like healing is happening. Healing is happening in tiny little areas here and there and that’s actually a huge deal because of how long the hurting and the aching and the bleeding has been happening. I’ve found some really good people- my therapist, a poets & writers community, family here, a positive work environment with great coworkers, people who can relate to my life and what I’ve been going through in so many aspects of health and healing. They’ve been able to help me to stop some of the bleeding, mending tiny tears here and there. Coming alongside me with gauze. Showing me how healing is a process that they are here for.

There have also been some other ugly parts of this analogy…

A part of healing has also meant pruning my relationship tree and reinvesting in caring for it well. People in my life who I know have contributed to the bleeding and who only continued to do so… well I’ve had to put up some boundaries and even go so far as to cauterize what was left behind. I’ve had to reevaluate some of my relationships and make decisions on who I need to remove and who I need to be connecting with more. This has been hard. Some of that might be seasonal, and some of it might be permanent. I don’t have the answers for that now.

What I do know is this:

All of these very hard things are contributing to some very good things in my life. I’ve felt a little freer. My blood pressure has been down. I feel good and excited while getting ready to head to work. And now… the nausea I’ve experienced almost every single day for 5 years is gone, and will hopefully stay that way.