For years I was tired. Not the kind of tired sleep fixes. The kind that’s just there, behind everything. Doctors never found anything so I kept gaslighting myself into thinking it was me. I’m too stressed, I’m not eating right, I’m not moving enough, …
Two months ago I gave up on that and spent an ungodly amount of money at private hospitals. Turns out it wasn’t all in my head - I have a rare gut disease. I’m now on immunosuppressants and a six-food elimination diet (no wheat, dairy, egs, nuts, fish or soy). Pretty much every comfort snack I like is out. No bread, no pasta, no sushi, no ramen, nothing. What’s left is meat, veggies, fruits and a lot of label reading.
And here’s the strange part. I feel like I’ve never felt before.
The diagnosis forced a few things at once.
It forced me to actually eat. I have a long history of undereating so I knew the diet would push my weight down even further if I wasn’t careful. So I started tracking macros and have been hitting a surplus consistently. This is quite possibly the first long stretch of my life where my body is getting enough calories.
It forced me to stay put. Doing this diet while traveling is impossible so I decided to settle for the foreseeable future. I have a home again. Honestly, the decision was easier than I expected. I think it would’ve been the right call even without the diagnosis.
And having a home made the rest possible. I’m lifting again. I’m playing padel. I made sleep an actual priority. I went back to therapy after years away.
Around the same time, I doubled down on the phone thing I wrote about a few weeks ago. No phone at breakfast. No Instagram. I have no idea what’s been happening in the world. My attention feels closer to mine than it has in a long time.
It took a few weeks before I noticed what had shifted. I’m not tired all the time. I wake up happy. I smile a lot. I want to move when I listen to good music (however awkward my dance moves are). Work is not a struggle. I’ve made real progress on things that matter to me. Life suddenly feels easy in a way I didn’t know it could.
It isn’t always easy though. I still burn willpower not to grab my phone first thing in the morning. And a few days ago I had a small breakdown after combing through every specialty grocery store in town for something, anything, that would feel like comfort food. I found fish-sauce-free kimchi, got home, reread the label and saw soy. I stood in the kitchen for a while.
But the bigger thing isn’t going away (I hope). For the first time, I know what it feels like to not be dragging something behind me. And I don’t want to forget that.