My Long Covid Journey Out Of Hell And Back To Health

I have been on quite a journey and wanted to share my tale in case it helps inspire any of you who are living with chronic physical conditions.

As you probably know, I contracted Covid early on in the pandemic (May 2020) which became Long Covid with significant, debilitating symptoms that lasted until October 2023.

I am over the moon happy to report that as of January 2024, most of my symptoms were gone or quite manageable. And as of this writing, Oct 2024, I am virtually symptom-free and I now know what to do if and when they begin to resurface.

During these past few years, I have focused on my health, my clients, my businesses and my family. Because my energy was so limited, it left little room for building and expanding my work, which is why you haven’t heard much from me in this space.

It was important to me to have consistent strength and confidence before I was ready to re-emerge and share my journey with you. Perhaps my story will spark some hope for those of you (or folks you may know) who are dealing with chronic, debilitating symptoms.

The short version of my story is that Covid initially attacked my brain, creating a laundry list of symptoms (notably, fatigue, nerve pain, brain fog and digestive distress, which is my way of saying I could only safely eat 4-5 foods for 3 years). For those who are curious, I only was able to digest turkey, olive oil, sauerkraut, eggs, and some plain fish. Yep, that was it. For. Three. Years.

It took me 3 years to realize and understand that my pathway back to wellness was through healing my nervous system. (As you may or may not know, my friend, the nervous system is the ruler of our body, our mind, our emotions.) What clued me into the fact that my nervous system was under duress was that every time I had a stressful thought or watched a suspenseful show or had a phone call where a friend relayed some kind of dramatic story, my physical symptoms would immediately crop up, usually nerve pain or extreme fatigue. This is what is known as the Mind/Body/Emotion Connection.

You may have heard of mind/body issues/illnesses. Dr. Sarno, a well-known orthopedic surgeon, named it Tension Myositis Syndrome (or TMS) when many of his patients who had surgeries under his care but were still experiencing debilitating pain. TMS is believed to be a physical response to a mental stress. Dr. Sarno purports that when we have a stressful thought, an area of our body does not receive oxygen. If this happens frequently, that body area or part will begin to experience pain or distress. He would prescribe daily journaling to his patients as a way to alleviate pain, and his patients had excellent results despite the fact that he was labeled a quack in the medical community.

Let me be clear. These physical symptoms are real. No, they’re not in your mind. They are real and have a mind/body/emotion connection because we are a whole being. We are not separate parts in how the current medical model treats patients. What’s so fascinating about this work is that so many folks with a wide range of chronic physical issues (pain, autoimmune, digestive disorders, nerve pain, chronic fatigue, allergies, I could go on and on…) are experiencing symptom relief by releasing stored up emotional pain and trauma through journaling.

 After trying pretty much every kind of healer or modality you can imagine (acupuncture, energy work, medical intuitives, functional doctors, infectious disease doctors, remote healing, as well as doing extreme things like the Carnivore diet and ending up in a program that made me even more ill than when I started), I finally stumbled upon ”TMS-ers” in June 2023. TMS-ers are a group of people who have had a wide range of chronic health issues (back pain, neck pain, autoimmune disorders, IBS, Lyme disease, Chron’s, etc.), who consider themselves as having TMS. These people have spent countless hours and dollars going to different doctors and healers without experiencing long-term symptom relief until they started journaling daily. Then, their symptoms began to slowly disappear.

The general idea is that if we’ve had an emotional trauma, our nervous system takes note of it and will do anything it can to avoid experiencing another one. It’s constantly tracking to make sure that “we’re safe.” It’s exhausting itself to always find a safe place or scenario. If we experience too many traumas or emotional events that we don’t release through healthy channels like expressing anger, rage, tears, and sadness but instead stuff them down inside, the nervous system learns that we aren’t safe in the world. It will create physical symptoms to keep us small, so we stay in bed, debilitated, and we don’t go out in the world where we might possibly experience more traumas. Our nervous systems have one job: to keep us safe so we survive and endure. If it perceives that we’re always in danger, then it will keep us safe by creating physical symptoms.

Once we begin to process and release these traumas by writing and re-experiencing the emotional pain, we show our nervous system that we’re okay—that we’re still safe—even in re-experiencing this pain. Our physical symptoms abate once the nervous systems perceives that we’re no longer in danger.

At this point in my journey, I was desperate to try anything. So I followed Dr. Sarno’s plan and  began a daily, 20 minute journaling practice followed by a 10 minute Self Compassion guided meditation that I found on Insight Timer app. After about a week, my symptoms improved. The journaling was working. And guess what?!? It was the hardest/easiest practice I’ve ever done…and the least expensive!

Now let me clarify that this isn’t just journaling to note down what happened today, nor is it a gratitude journal. This is what I call “Rage On The Page” writing. It’s ranting, raging, scribbling. It’s not necessarily always a ragefest, but that’s what it often feels like to me. It’s getting really real and letting everything I’ve ever stuffed deep inside to come out to be released. It’s writing out all the ruminations, the old tapes, the crappy stuff we did or experienced, all the terrible things we say about ourselves or about others that we usually swallow down whole. It’s where you are 100% honest with your feelings and thoughts in that moment. And those thoughts and beliefs can change in the next moment. It’s ok to be dark because no one is going to read it. When you’re done, tear it up and throw it away in a public trash can so it will never be read or looked at by anyone. For those who prefer a keyboard, just be sure to delete the whole rant you’ve typed up and save it as a blank document.

 This sounds a lot easier than it is. As I mentioned earlier, this is the hardest/easiest work I’ve ever done to heal myself. It’s incredibly hard to get into the emotional space and pain and revisit the crappy stuff in order to release it. Who wants to do that? No one! It can be especially challenging for women to access their anger and let it rip because society and family conditioning have often taught us that we’re not allowed to be angry. Or perhaps we got in trouble for expressing our anger, so it was safer to stuff it down and put a smile on our faces. I’ve heard from some of my male clients that they often have a hard time accessing sadness because, similarly, they were taught it’s not okay to be sad or cry. But if you set a timer for 20 minutes, feel into what is wanting to be released, and just do it, the symptoms do improve. It’s so powerful!

After 3 months of daily writing (and also pausing on anything else medical), I no longer had fatigue, and I was able to reintroduce more variety in food. My head was clear, and the nerve pain was gone. (Whoop!)

By October 2023, I could eat a wider range of food; by March 2024, I could even eat raw salad without any digestive distress! In September 2024, my husband and I took a month-long trip to Italy, and I had no food issues at all! This is a significant change for me because before I had even contracted Covid, I had a lot of dietary restrictions (no dairy, sugar, alcohol). As of this writing, I can now eat anything I want, so I have healed myself far more than I could ever imagine. (Double whoop!)

In hindsight, this whole journey was extraordinarily empowering and life-changing. It allowed me to shift from being a victim to being a victor. I also learned that contracting Covid was the final straw for my nervous system to go fully awry. Covid was a big blow to my health, but I was already managing autoimmune illnesses and hadn’t made the life and work-style shifts necessary to create mind/body/emotion wellness.

I had decades of stuff I had been shoving down, bottling up, and ruminating on that needed to see the light of day so I could heal.

At the beginning of this Long Covid journey, I didn’t know what to do about it, but I did, at least, have that awareness.

It took me 3 ½ years to find my way out, so you don’t have to. It was a long journey in which I had to learn self-acceptance, self-trust, and self-compassion, among many other AFGOs and life lessons. (AFGO is short for Another Fantastic/ F%#*ING Growth Opportunity.)

 As I write this today, I certainly haven’t mastered any of these, but I can say that I now know them intimately— in my bones— whereas before contracting Covid, I had only a mental understanding of them.

I still Rage On The Page a few days a week to keep my symptoms at bay and my nervous system calm. This is not a one-and-done kind of a thing. It’s a practice, like doing yoga, working out or taking a shower.

I will share more about my journey in future posts, and I wanted to reach out and give you a brief update, reconnect, and let you know that I am still here.

If any of my story interests you and you want to learn more, or perhaps you (or someone you know) are struggling with chronic issues and symptoms that might be TMS-related, I am here to help. Feel free to book a complimentary call, and we can find a time to chat.

Now that I know the way, I will share more so that you, too, can be on your path to healing faster, easier, smarter. Stay tuned!