Wednesday, November 13, 2019

Physical Health and Mental Health

So, I’ve always been transparent with my followers, and I want to talk a little bit about what I’ve been dealing with the past few years.

I am not the healthiest of people. My mental health is definitely something I struggle with, but on top of that, I have some physical health problems that have taken some adjusting to live with.

I am 23 years old, and I suffer from undiagnosed chronic, invisible illness. The only things I know for sure about my health, are the symptoms I deal with daily.

To give you an idea, up until 2015, I was very healthy. In fact, I rarely got sick beyond the common cold. It wasn’t until I came down with mono, hepatitis A, strep throat, a tooth infection, and had a sprained ankle, within 6 weeks of each other, that I actually experienced a decline. At this time I was 18 years old.

All of the things mentioned eventually went away, but after that, I never fully recovered. It was hard to bounce back. I slept in more, and I still felt exhausted. I’d fall asleep at work, and I acquired a pale color to my face. My dark circles under my eyes have never gone away, and along with that, I started to experience a lot more symptoms.

On a daily basis, I live with chronic pain, especially when I’m having a flare up. I get sick almost every time I eat, to the point where I have to find okay times to eat while at work, so I can remain effective in my job position. I have heart palpitations that I’ve had since I was a preteen, and dizzy spells that leave me light headed and my heart racing. My joints pop painfully, my hair has fallen out out in clumps in the past. I have a hard time maintaining appropriate levels of vitamin D, and so on.

A little over a year ago, I got a least one answer for some of my pain. For a few years prior, I had begun experiencing pan in my hip that got increasingly worse over time. I kept thinking “it’ll go away, I just need to take it easy.” But I eventually realized I was wrong. It took 4 doctors, one of which told me “you’re young, there’s probably nothing wrong, you’ll just have to live with it” to get a diagnosis. When I finally got diagnosed, I was relieved, not because something was wrong with me, but because I finally knew what it was. I had a labral tear in my hip. The option I was given, was surgery, and I took it.
(Post surgery photo pictured on the right)

One year after that surgery, and I still experience pain in my hip and it’s one more thing I’m continuing to look into, to improve my quality of life.

I’ve been to two cardiologists, a rheumatologist, several general practitioners, and so far, 6 orthopedic surgeons, with the referral to see another. It has been years, and I have very little answers and no relief.

It has been frustrating to say the least, and at one point, I used to go into doctors offices optimistic and excited that they might finally find what’s wrong. That hope still lingers, but it’s very rare that I walk away from an appointment feeling confident that we’re going in the right direction. Honestly, the last few appointments have left me in tears.

The struggle of finding answers takes a toll on my mental health. Over the years of searching, I’ve found myself in various situations of disappointment. Sometimes I think I might never have answers, and maybe that’s true, but for my mental healths sake, I keep looking.

A part of the difficulty, with dealing with invisible, chronic illness, especially undiagnosed, is that I’ll often run into people who don’t believe me. “You look fine to me.”or “You’re young, you have your whole life ahead of you.” I’ve heard those before in reference to my mental health, too. It’s not encouraging, as most of you know, it’s invalidating.

Your physical health takes a toll on your mental health. It makes you feel hopeless in already difficult situations. Neither one is more important than the other. We have to take care of ourselves in every way we can, but they do effect each other tremendously.

My mental health has effected my physical health before as well. Making me less inclined to eat, drink water, or take my medications. It's a cycle we have to do our best to stay out of.

I want to be transparent, and show my support for other mental health warriors who also deal with chronic illness. As they are both big parts of my life, I want SLLY to be a reflection of me, and my passion for health all around the board.

Stop Look Love Yourself's primary focus is mental health, but I may mention chronic illness now and then.

If anyone else deals with chronic illness, please feel free to reach out to me at any time!

-Tori Lynn

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