How I Got Here (My Story) 🪻

This picture was taken back in 2010 - I was deep in medication, I gained over 80 pounds in less than three months. I was pre diabetic, I had leg tremors, I couldn't feel my left leg (it was numb), I had double vision, blurry vision and in and out of psychotic episodes.

This picture here was taken in February 2016 - I had been blogging for a month before I went to a food blogging conference. I had been off of medication for about 6ish months - and wanted to share my journey / experience.

This was taken a couple months before I moved to New Mexico - end of 2016

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I remember thinking something was wrong with me.

I felt crazy and insane

I couldn’t trust myself, what I saw, felt or even heard.

I didn’t know if they were real or a hallucination

I was paranoid all the time

I lived in constant fear

I was so disconnected from my emotions and feelings that when my friend told me his grandpa was passing I patted his shoulder and said there, there and walked away.

The medications that kept me ‘sane’ also kept me dead and numb.

I would pray for hypomania as it was the only time I felt alive and then soon guilt and shame would take over because after the couple days of fun came the voices, the men asking me for my blood, telling me if I gave it to them I would be free.

I hit rock bottom and with my moms help and the help of a support team I was able to slowly come to terms with my trauma and finding my way home to self

It wasn’t easy.

There were days I cried and wanted to die. I felt helpless and like it was just too much and I wanted it to end.

My rock bottom was the anti psychotic I was on that was keeping me sorta stable - pill version was now being replaced by an extended release shot version

My psychiatrist disclosed to my mom that about .3 % of patience that the pill works for the shot doesn’t but that she didn’t really see that happening.

GUESS what it did.

I fell into that .3%

I had a month long dosage in me and was having full on auditory and visual hallucinations.

My doctor said - inpatient

My mom said no, we had done that time and time again with the same result.

She had been doing research on alternative therapies and each time she brought it up I would say no.

I remember it like it was yesterday when she brought it up to me again.

We were at the beach club in Panama, having lunch. She told me she felt like we had hit the bottom and didn’t know which way to go. She asked me if I wanted to try something different, to see if maybe this time we could have a different result. She reminded me that we could always return here.

I was desperate.

I was tired.

I didn’t want to do this anymore.

I lived in constant fear.

Of my thoughts.

Of myself.

There was nothing to lose.

A few weeks later I started to work with a psychiatrist in Colombia (I feel like my grandma sent her to us) and after  6 months of intensive therapy we started the tapering off process which took another 4 months

The months after that we’re probably scarier than anything else I’ve experienced.

I was constantly waiting for the other shoe to drop.

I was worried I was gonna trigger another episode.

I was feeling emotions for the first time in years.

I would call my therapist and tell her she broke me.

Years of repressed emotions were coming to the surface.

Repressed trauma was coming up to be addressed.

Yet I kept going

Here I am.

That was back in 2015

It’s 2023

I share this to remind you that it is possible to come home to yourself.

To find safety in the body.

To reconnect with trust.

To feel so at home you are no longer looking outside of for a direction.

You've landed.

You've arrived.

That is my mission: to be your guide back home to self.