Rachel (early 20s background, English degree) recounts developing prolonged illness after a chest infection and appendicitis, with predominant fatigue, headaches and mobility limits that disrupted work, social life and exercise. She tried supplements and free meditation videos first; later, during the pandemic she began the Gupta Program. Within weeks she noticed symptom relief from the program’s seven-step process, and over ~9–12 months reached about 80% recovery, later returning to full-time work and increasing activity (hiking, badminton).
Chapters
Hi, my name's Rachel. So before I was unwell, I mean I was in my early 20s, I'd been to university, I'd done an English degree. I've always been very into kind of reading and theatre and I had my first job at working in local government and was doing a lot of exercise at the time, which I think was something that then led, was a factor in me becoming unwell. But yeah, just yeah, living quite a busy life but having, having a lot of fun as well and enjoying my work and things. So I, I came down with a, like a virus, like a chest infection type virus. Didn't really stop for it kind of was going on like a weekend city break to Italy at the time. So I carried on with that and it took me a little while to get over it, which was unusual. And I kind of noticed that when I was in classes at the gym that like it had kind of hit me and I was really into my exercise so I noticed the difference in my fitness. Then I got appendicitis. So yeah, kind of came out of nowhere and I think it can be linked to kind of respiratory viruses and things. And then yeah, just from after that just never really got back to normal. Just generally feeling unwell. So headaches and things like that, some aches in arms and legs. But yeah, fatigue, fatigue was the overriding and just all kind of consuming symptom for me really. I was struggling at work and I was working from home more and more and we have kind of flexible working so I was doing less hours but running a huge deficit of hours. I owed my work which was quite stressful and um, so it did really impact on me work wise. I missed out on a lot of social things with friends, had to cancel a lot of plans, had to cancel holidays with time, how long I spent with like family and friends at gatherings and maybe just have an hour and then need to go and rest. Obviously I wasn't, I stopped going to the gym completely. I wasn't exercising anymore because that made me much worse. Um, but even with walking, like if we did go somewhere I had, I, I would. Time kind of how long was on my feet and walking for. So it was very restrictive. I was someone who kind of went out and looked at everything possible out there that could help and was taking all sorts of supplements and trying various different things. So the, the, the first few videos that you can get for free, I access those a couple of years before doing the program properly and I was by that point because I was probably free two or Three years into being unwell, I was much more open minded. Obviously at first you think, well, how is this going to help me? And I incorporated the meditation recommendation just from having seen that. And that actually helped me to some extent in my health on its own. But then when things came along, like I got a cold or something, it wasn't enough. You know, it helped, but it didn't kind of stop me having setbacks and things. So then. So I had various ups and downs like that. But then I think during the pandemic, whenever it was obviously very stressful, I found it very stressful with thinking that I was at higher risk. And I remember saying to people like, if I get Covid, this could set me back for a year, two years for life. Like, that's how I saw it at the time. I found it very worrying. That was the point at which I was like, I need to try something more and something more structured and kind of put my trust in something. And I'd already done research of the various programs out there that the good to one particularly appealed. So then, yeah, I then decided to give that a go. So I noticed straight away in starting it, but I found it, it reassured me. So I felt a little bit more at ease and just a bit more comforted by kind of watching the videos and things and feeling like a sense of like, there's other people doing this and it's. Yeah, it was very supportive obviously in the way it's put forward. But then with the seven step, as soon as the seven step process was introduced, I found that actually started to relieve some of my symptoms quite quickly. So within even a couple of weeks, I felt like I was largely out of the. The kind of really bad dip I'd been in, which was amazing. And obviously to have that response to it made me have a lot of faith in it though. So, yeah, I noticed less fatigue very quickly, but I was in a particularly bad place. And I think I felt, yeah, just a greater sense of ease, more relaxed about things and was able just to take a different approach mentally towards being unwell and see myself as someone who was recovering rather than someone who was sick. And I think that made, yeah, a huge difference. Took me maybe about a year or nearly nine months to a year to kind of get to that 80% kind of mark. And soon after that we went on a holiday and I just felt so well and able to like walk and go on hikes and not worry about it. And I think that's been something that's been really liberating for me to be able to. Yeah. Go out, like, hiking or something like that, and not think like, oh, I need to, you know, I can only walk for 20 minutes, then I need to stop and then that's it kind of thing. So, yeah, that's been huge. And then more recently, I've returned to work full time, so that's obviously been a milestone. I've been able to. So for years, the only exercise I've worried about is. Is walking and working on walking, because it's such a practical thing and it's so useful. But. But more recently, I've been able to kind of do exercise more for the sake of exercise. So I've started playing badminton, so that's quite a big thing.
