Meet Rachel!

These above words seem so simple on their own. Together the impact is so powerful than I like to remind myself often of this fact. Just as one person's trash is another's treasure. The things I say at the age of 42, some might have figured out much, much earlier. 

Starting From Despair took me longer to get to "a calm and happy place." 

I did not know my nervous system was out of balance and deregulated.

I did not know my nervous system was always "on" in the Fight, Flight or Freeze state. 

How could I know any of this, when this has always just been me?

How could I know the trauma experienced by the age of 5 changed my developing brain? 

How could I know?

I do not think I've uncovered all the way my brain and body have been affected by shoving my feelings deep inside as a young child. 

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Many of us develop social anxieties at a young age. For me these anxieties were crippling. A broken home with survival, safety and coping occupying my brain there wasn't much room for joy and play. 

I developed a "mystery disease" at 16.5 and would consume the next 1.5 years with tests and medical procedures to determine what was wrong with me.

NOTHING WAS DETERMINED. 

 It was found that I had less than 10% liver function. 

I needed a liver transplant.

To survive a transplant at age 18, with no diagnosis for why never seemed odd. It does now at age 42. Very odd.

I was told I had an autoimmune disease but no specifics. "My immune system is wacky" was the answer. 

....okay. But was it? I've never had any ongoing complications, and never a diagnosis. 

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After a slip and fall at work and a wrist fracture that wasn't treated properly, I developed Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS). This was the rabbit hole I fell into to finally see the full-scale picture of What happen to me, NOT what was wrong with me. And so, the healing began. 

Educating myself on CRPS, I found it isn't developed by the "weak." It's a disease that transpires out of enduring. For me it was the final sign from my nervous system screaming for me to regulate it. 

Understanding my ACE (adverse childhood experiences) score; and how these events in my early life changed my brain. They changed my body as a whole. Understanding this impact is the key. 

Taking many painful years and many doctors to finally get one that understood the nerves, the nervous system and the connection with the mind and emotions. This profound knowledge is how I began to heal my nervous system.

I want to share my experience and science that is behind healing the nervous system and regulating the vagus nerve specifically.