Stop Chasing Healing, Embrace Living

As I finish up my second week fully committed to the Autoimmune Protocol, a modified version of the Paleo diet (caveman diet). I find myself reflecting on what I have accomplished. It is not easy to make changes, and it takes determination to be sure those changes really happen. I couldn’t imagine following the autoimmune protocol even 5 years ago. I was a heavy drinker, vegetarian and loved baking bread with my kitchenaide mixer. It wasn’t until I started getting sick that I realized the path I was on wasn’t getting me anywhere.

I spent the past 3 years taking every supplement the books/websites/friends suggested. I started eating meat, and I went gluten-free. I constantly flip-flopped around from restriction to restriction and never felt relief. I would begin to heal and my digestion issues would flare up, and once I got my digestion under control (somewhat) my skin would flare. Feeling thankful that my Psoriasis remained on my scalp, and then it started to appear down the side of my leg. While thinking these therapies were helping, they were more than likely making it worse.

While I don’t take prescriptions often, I was taking a cocktail of supplements each day, on top of multiple homeopathic, and herbal tinctures. I was studying these things to some degree but taking them all together – I couldn’t tell what was helping. Telling myself that they were natural and suggested by reliable sources.. I became a pill popper. Going on vacation, or away for a day or 2, and I had to have at least 6 different pills and a couple herbal tinctures. I couldn’t control my health it seemed and the pills and herbs made me feel like I could. 

I would avoid certain foods for a week then go to a social gathering and feel obligated to cheat. I battled depression, stress, anxiety. I was losing my mind. Completely resigned to a life of torment and pain. Never waking up feeling great and never healing.

When they say you have to hit rock bottom, I can from experience say it’s true. There at the bottom of my spiritual well I gave in. I looked all my misery and pain in the face and I wasn’t afraid. There in my dark hole I began to see what this struggle was teaching me, and how it was making me a better person. It was there in that moment that I truly began to heal. Spiritually. Mentally. Physically.

I gained a sense of clarity and all the research I had gathered on my sickness pointed the way. I have a long way to go. I know now that I have the strength and the courage, because it’s what my condition gave me as a gift. I couldn’t have accomplished 2 full weeks of AIP without it.

I have been so busy cooking, working, and trying to get things together for the holidays, that I have not created any new recipes! To my delight there are so many online and in cookbooks that I have been able to cook without stress. AIP baking is a breeze so far, I love fruits and vegetables, and have found that a giant smoothie daily really helps me get in my greens!

Hopefully in the next few weeks I will have more recipe review posts and some photos of foods I have made. It has only been 2 weeks but I already have less inflammation in my sinuses and don’t wake up horribly congested. My skin is still in rough shape, most outbreaks take at least 6 weeks, and I was diagnosed with a second condition. Interstitial cystitis, chronic inflammation of the bladder. I remain hopeful. There are many amazing people out there who have taken back their health eating this way and I intend to be one of them.