My Ongoing Recovery From Long Covid, And What It's Teaching Me

So I wanted to make this video to tell you what's been going on for me. This has been one of the hardest months of my life and one of the most transformational, and my guess is that you probably know someone who's been going through some of what I've been going through. Maybe it's even you. I have had a really bad case of Long COVID. I got COVID last 15 months ago. I've been going downhill basically pretty much since then, and I was in a lot of denial about it. I had previously had chronic fatigue issues off and on for 11 years prior, and it was pretty well managed. I, on the trip when I got COVID, I spent the first couple weeks hiking and having fun. And then once I got the virus, I was grounded, and I have had very little ability to do physical things since then. I think I can count the number of walks I've taken in the last 15 months on one hand. I could live without walks, although that was a loss, but what was much more insidious was the depression and anxiety and brain fog and brain inflammation that was taking me over. And it was happening so gradually that I really didn't understand what was going on. And it got to the point where I couldn't do most of my work. I was thankfully still able to show up and teach and coach. Some of the time I noticed myself having word recall difficulties or losing a train of thought, which was not typical for me. But you might not have noticed. Uh, I also realize now that a lot of my joy in life was leaving. I was more easily triggered. I wasn't feeling what I wanted to be feeling in my love relationship, and I didn't understand why. I blamed the place that I'm living. I blamed lack of feelings for my girlfriend. I blamed attachment issues. I didn't know what was wrong. I was getting posts on Facebook about ADHD, and I was clicking on them. I thought about the possibility of going on an antidepressant pharmaceutical for the first time in my life. A couple months ago, I sat on my deck in tears, and I said to a very longtime friend who I've known for over 30 years, Ali, I, I think I'm depressed. This is not like me. Now, a lot of people I love have suffered with depression and anxiety most or all of your lives, and I totally get that, but that was not me. So the physical symptoms increased to the point where I was basically bedbound. When I stood up, I would get Dizzy and weak, so I had to spend most of my time lying down. Even sitting up was a problem. A few weeks ago, I spent several nights lying on my kitchen floor crying, and my dear girlfriend was so unbelievably supportive. But honestly, this illness was really messing up our relationship. Not because of any lack of support on her part, but because of how it was messing with my perceptions. So the most important thing I want to say today is, first of all, if anything like this has happened to you or anyone you know, please know it's not you, it's not them, it's brain inflammation. Second of all, there is hope. About 5 weeks ago, I started intensively researching because I realized that the way that I was feeling was not compatible with sustainable life for me. And, um, I have learned so much. One of the great things is that 11 years ago when I first got sick with chronic fatigue, there wasn't that much helpful information out there. Now there is because of long COVID, because unfortunately millions of people have long COVID, which is basically, I now understand, the same as chronic fatigue. Chronic fatigue is often triggered by a virus or bacterial infection or physical trauma, surgery, an accident, can be even triggered just by extreme prolonged stress. In my case I don't know what the original trigger was, but it was made much, much worse by my case of COVID 15 months ago. One thing I did— this is kind of a tale of 2 communities— I went on Facebook searching for support. I joined a Long COVID support group, and I joined another group of people using a particular Safe but experimental treatment for COVID. In the first group, basically 90% of the posts are anguish. It is people who have had an array of symptoms, who have lost the ability to work, who have most of the symptoms I had, and in some cases more. They've had them for years. They have very little hope. Doctors are not helping them. They are every other post is full of weepy face emojis, and I don't know how much longer I can go on like this. And I have deep compassion for that group of people, and reading those posts did not help me. The group that did help me is a group. Of smart, determined, motivated risk-takers who reached each of them through a painful radicalization process. In my case, this happened many years ago. For some people, it's just happening now, realizing that conventional Western medicine for the most part cannot help us with these syndromes. And each of these people became determined to find something that could. And it has been incredible. This group has changed my life because I started on the experimental treatment. I felt some side effects. I could check in with the group. I could read people's amazing recovery stories. I could read stories from other people who weren't being helped, people who had to go way down on the dose, people who were reporting in 6 or 8 months later saying they were cured or at least had had a really significant remission, or they were 60% better, or they were 80% better. And getting to share stories with this group has changed my life. So needless to say, I am going to be bringing community around Long COVID and other chronic illness to the Conscious Girlfriend Academy. Because this is who I am. Whatever I learn, whatever I go through, it seems to be my mission in life to share it and in some cases teach about it, in some cases just create platforms for all of us to learn together. I am not completely out of the woods yet. I am lying down at the moment, but today I walked down the stairs to my backyard Not once, but twice. This is the most activity I've had in over a month. I picked ingredients for 2 beautiful salads, and I'm going to a small gathering tonight. Not completely sure how that will go. As you can see, I'm resting up before going, but I am hopeful. The biggest thing that has happened over— I don't even know, there's so many big things that have happened. I hit the lowest of the lows about a month ago, honestly, and I have gone through brain and body transformation. Uh, some of the supplements I found and have been taking— and honestly, I don't even want to call them supplements because they're not supplementing anything, they are medicine— I have found a number of over-the-counter, not widely known about medicines that have been restoring my brain. I am increasingly able to work again, and I am experiencing an emotional capacity and an open-heartedness. And some of the other changes— I have worked so many years to try to integrate. It's getting a whole lot easier now with my brain being less inflamed. Of course, it's having incredibly positive impact on my relationship. And I also literally just a few days ago found a supplement, aka medicine, that within hours took away the dizziness so that I didn't have to keep lying in bed all the time. Now, part of what I've learned is that with these kinds of fatigue conditions like Long COVID, our genetic variations play a huge role in both what we experience and what we respond to. So the particular medicines I have found may not be your medicines. But I have felt enough change in just a few weeks that I am absolutely confident that I am going to get through this thing. I am going to feel— I don't know if it'll be weeks or months from now, but I am going to feel better than I have felt in a very long time, maybe even ever. And I believe You can get there too. So I just wanted to share this with you. Thank you for being you. Thank you for being on this journey with me, and more soon. Whoops.