The Role of Fear in My Chronic Illness.

Travel helped me realize that something bigger was happening than just wondering if I would find food. I was simply afraid! I had good reason to be afraid. I couldn’t eat over 30 different foods, just being in the sun or heat made my body feel instant pain and lead to horrible headaches, I was having daily migraines, and I was so fatigued that very little activity would make me feel so tired. I was a hot mess! These things were all my reality and worth considering as possibilities for why travel was not possible or wouldn't be worth it for me. But they were just fears. Fear is something that puts us into a cage. None of these meant I should give up my dream of seeing the world, but they did make me doubt if it was possible. 

Fear can hold us back from living life. Fear keeps us down, from leaving the house, from enjoying our lives. Fear was that annoying friend that would remind me that my body was unwell and sometimes push me into a flare up.  Fear was that demon on my shoulder telling me that travel was not for someone like me. 

For over 9 years now, I have struggled with an intolerance and reactions to sun and heat. I’m taking heat over 70 degree fahrenheit and being in the sun for even 5 minutes would put me into a full on flare that lasted days. It was becoming so frustrating! As a kid and young adult, I loved the summer, playing in the sun and heat until bed when possible. But summer had become my enemy. I went to doctors asking for help. They would do tests on me and were stumped for answers. They told me to stay out of the heat and sun as much as possible, drink water, and come back next year. I felt frustrated, I had no idea what to do. The result was that I spent 8 years out of the sun. I would live only in air conditioning. I barely saw friends at home because their homes were too hot, my house too dark, or the shade from trees was not cool enough for my body to handle. While traveling, I had to go out in the morning or at night, braving it when there was enough shade to allow me to not overheat. I lived in the shadows and I was sick of it. 

For seven years now, I have been changing my diet and lifestyle and mind to help my body heal from the chronic illness that stole my body from me. I was careful and protected myself like a mama bear protects her young. And I saw such an improvement in my health! In the last year, I’ve been able to add some foods back into my diet that I had previously lost, I slowly was having more energy than before, my migraines went from 7 a week to 4 or 5 a week. I felt so much better.  But I still could not handle more than 10 minutes in the sun and heat over 75 degree fahrenheit, I decided this was my next thing to tackle. At this point it was safe to say that I had an unhealthy fear of the sun and heat. I was terrified. And I honestly had good reason to feel that way, but also it was not helping me to heal. My body was trying to keep me safe, it was protecting me. It was loving me. But trying to avoid all sun and heat was adding even stress to my already tired and burdened body and mind. And that made me more sick.

I had a doctor that had told me that my health is like a tea cup. The tea cup holds all the problems and stresses for me. My childhood home was extremely stressful and unhappy and I had trauma from this, and this trauma filled my tea cup.  As a kid, I was always sick, my diet was not full of the nutrients that I needed, and this filled my cup up a bit more. As an adult, I could not afford a place to live for many months, I moved to another state, couldn’t find a job, ate what I could get, and all this overwhelmed me. My family was a constant stressor and I would feel exhausted by just seeing their names show up on my phone caller ID. There were several more things and basically my tea cup was almost full. At 22 years old, I started working for a refugee resettlement agency, I LOVED the job and the people I helped but I had A LOT on my plate and mind. I barely slept. This all overflowed my tea cup! I started getting daily migraines, my stomach was in crazy pain always, I reacted to almost every food I ate, I had no energy, the heat and sun issues started, and I had to deal with the trauma I had. I went on like this for 7 years, overjoyed to be helping people but doing while in SO much pain. I knew I needed to rest or something worse would happen. I left my job and traveled for 13 months. I slowly felt better.  Fast forward to the summer of 2019, I finally felt better than I had in so long. I decided to face my fear of sun and heat, head on and teach my body to handle it. 

I had done sauna in Europe and South America during our travels in 2018. I was afraid to sit in heat but my fear was overridden by the desire to engage with culture and people we met while traveling. I did it and while it was hard and I didn't always feel incredible after I wanted to do it. I realized after that this might be a ticket towards health for me. I knew it could fail miserably and I might get worse but I had tried everything else and I was desperate and open to trying anything. I wanted to teach my body that sun and heat aren’t bad things in themselves, in fact they are both good things. Heat causes you to sweat and this is a pathway for the body to release toxins. Sun is one of the ways the body receives vitamin D, and vitamin D is a necessary nutrient for health functioning. My goal was to train myself to slowly handle small doses of both.

So in 2019, I found a local gym that had a sauna and started going weekly. I was adding minutes every few weeks, and felt so proud of my body! Next step was being in the sun more. The summer of 2019, my husband and I lived and worked out of our suitcases for 3 months on the Oregon Coast, Seattle, and in Victoria, British Columbia. The thing these places all have in common was less heat and short periods of sun. It made me feel more safe to go on walks outside knowing that it wasn’t hot and that there would be shade or clouds somewhere. It gave me confidence to start getting sun. I spend most of that summer outside in the summer. I started outside first for 10 minutes a day, and each day added more time out in the sun. At first, I didnt feel better but I knew I needed the sun and felt that if I could get more sun then it might help my headaches. Nothing else was working and I was sick of avoiding the sun and heat. Because my gosh it is everywhere! 

-My reality was that heat and sun gave me instant migraines and then led me to react to foods more easily. And this made me tired and stressed out and then led to more migraines.

-Fear told me heat and sun were bad and to stay out of the sun and heat. 

1. I agreed with fear because sun and heat obviously made me sick and it was trying to protect me.

2. But I also knew fear was holding me back from further healing. I had done the hard work of healing through eating a healthy diet, reducing  my exposure to chemicals and toxins, i did many cleanes, reduced stress and anxiety, I was doing the hard work of working through mental trauma I had from my childhood, I was getting better. I had spent 7 long years doing this. But I was still really vitamin D deficient and this was adding to headaches and the supplements were not fixing it alone. I could feel that I needed sun. 

3. So armed with this awareness and goal, I started my journey of slowly doing sauna, spending short times out in the sun and when I could safely and in a fun way I would combine heat and sun. I started to sweat again, I started to feel better, my migraines reduced to once a week. 

4. I wasn't mad at fear for holding me back from enjoying summer, for keeping me in a dark house alone for hours and hours a day, for keeping me away from friends homes and parties, that wasn't going to help me now. I decided fear needed to not hold such a front and center place in my life. Instead, I thanked it for its service in keeping me safe, and alerting me to problems. I told it that it had served its purpose in my life and that it was released from its duty and needed to go now. And you know what?! It has listened! I'm not saying that I don’t react to heat and sun but that now I am able to get sun and sun without freaking to beforehand and making it worse. I feel more feel now. 

Fear can be our enemy or our helper. You get to choose. What do you want your life to look like? Do you want to let fear be the main or only voice you listen to? Yes, fear served a purpose in life, but it was not a “friend” I always wanted around, because it was suffocating me and was my enemy many times. So I chose to listen to it’s warning alarm of the problem, do the hard work of healing, and then tell it to go its way. It was both my enemy and helper at times. But I was not going to let it stop me any longer!