When I sat down to write this, wanting to share the story of my struggles over the last few years, I had a hard I didn’t know where to start! So, let’s just start at what happened this past week.

After months of dealing with a doctor that I really disliked, I found one that fit the bill of what I was looking for. I was able to switch to my new doctor quickly and make an appointment online for that same week (when I called to make my first appointment with my last doctor, I had to wait TWO MONTHS for an open appointment). I was also able to fill out all the paperwork online, where my previous doctor did everything on paper either in person or through the mail. So, we were off to a good start.

During my appointment, my new doctor he said, “All of this is connected, all of it is very real. But it’s all medical and all things we can fix. It will take some time, but we will do it. You’re not lazy, you’re sick. Your body just isn’t working like it should, but we’ll change that.”

What was “all of this?”

Muscle pain, muscle spasms, extreme exhaustion, sleep disturbances if I could sleep at all, light sensitivity, sound sensitively, almost constant nausea, headaches that last days, a sore throat practically daily, memory loss, lightheadedness, dizziness, particularly bad exhaustion after any type of physical activity, problems with focus and concentration that gets worse the more mental activity I do, irregular periods with beyond heavy bleeding, loss of appetite, quick and unusual weight gain (I’ve gained 50lbs since January).

I tried to take these concerns to my previous doctor, and she literally told me, “It’s nothing, you’ll be fine.” That was it. That was the extent of her concern about things I worried about with my health.

This new doctor, on the other hand, asked me a lot of questions, poked and prodded at me, had me do a bunch of little in-office physical tests, and ordered blood tests. He diagnosed me with one thing and made several other preliminary diagnoses pending the blood work. His determination:

• Chronic Fatigue
• Adrenal Insufficiency (the actual medical term for what the wellness gurus call “adrenal fatigue”)
• Hormone Imbalance

How did this all start?

To the best of my memory, it started around spring 2018, though many of these individual symptoms had been with me in varying degrees for years. It became a real problem in September 2018. I was sick all the time or at the very least unable to do a full day’s work without ending up feeling completely drained and ill by the evening.

I was trying as hard as I could to keep things business as usual and told myself I was just getting burned out. I was getting lazy, I needed a break. That’s all it is, I just needed a rest.

After a week, and then two, I felt worse rather than better. That’s when I started to think maybe it was something else, but I had no idea what.

This is from a week or so ago on a day where I felt terrible. But to look at me you might think everything is fine. It’s not.

At the time I had my online coven that struggled to stay together after I continued to have a pattern of canceling planned online events, missing dates for content that I had promised, and needing to take a lot of time away. I felt terrible because as each month passed, I was letting people down more and more. And while everyone would say they understood, I knew that didn’t mean they were OK with it. I know I wasn’t!

I didn’t have the energy to teach. I didn’t have the energy to do livestreams, workshops, calls, or even write. I needed to rest and kept hoping that one day, I would wake up and just feel better. I always wanted to be working, being creative and productive, but I didn’t have the energy.

Lots of people thought I was just getting lazy. Some people accused me (in private of course) of offering things to make money but not actually working for it. This had been buzzing around my online coven specifically, which was free when it started but eventually had to have a small monthly fee for me to maintain. But as I became sicker and needed more time away, some people took issue with it and thought I was taking advantage of the situation.

I was even told that if I were “offering my sacred gifts properly” (read: for free) people would be more on my side.

I wasn’t lazy, I was sick.

October came, and I had to cut all my holiday work short because I didn’t have the energy to do dozens of readings and witchcraft coaching sessions for Samhain and Halloween. That was when the financial strain really began since that’s usually the busiest time of year for me.

Everything was slowing down. I was running behind on getting my 2019 planners out, I was closing down all my readings and any remaining coaching, and I was spending a lot more time sleeping, staring at a screen blankly, and just being out of it in general.

I’d like to say things shifted in the new year, but they didn’t. I have good days and bad days, but overall, it has been a slow descent down. Things become worse and hit a significant low in June. I went to see my old doctor, and I was told she didn’t have time for all of my complaints, and she had too many patients to see and needed me to hurry up with my appointment. Mind you, she was 45 minutes late for my appointment, and I’d been sitting in a tiny fluorescent lit exam room waiting for her all that time. But now she’s telling me to “hurry up” because she’s “very busy.”

After that exchange, I spent a month decompressing and then found my new doctor, and here we are.

But where are we?

I’m not able to work. I’m lucky if I’m able to get out of bed before noon. When I do get up, I have a headache that would rival ones I had in my 20’s after a night of drugs and drinking. I sit down to work and can’t focus for more than 15 minutes. I will be in the middle of working on something and forget what I was doing. I actually forgot how old I was one day last week and had to do the math in my head. It’s just bad and getting worse.

To be fair, as some people know, I have a few medical and mental health conditions that have long been diagnosed but that have been either untreated (thanks to “You’ll be fine” doctors) or undertreated (doctors prescribing something in a knee jerk reaction and leaving it at that). My existing known health issues include:

• ADHD
• Depression (generalized)
• Anxiety (generalized)
• Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome
• Restless Leg Syndrome (if you don’t have this consider yourself VERY blessed)
• Vertigo (I’m one dizzy bitch! LOL)

Even though technically Minerva isn’t a service animal, so is 100% my emotional support cat. When I’m not feeling well, she knows…almost before I do…and she’s by my side without question. Today she’s been with me all day, curled up next to my desk and following me if I leave.

Most of these are tied to one another. Many of them have been lifelong issues or at least ones that have been with me for decades.  RLS is the one that is the most recent (in the last 8 years) and the one that has become the most progressive. So, when you take these existing things and mix in all the stuff I mentioned up top, my life is a challenge right now day in and day out. And it sucks.

But the good news is this new doctor has all the hope and confidence in the world that all these things, from my muscle twitching to my sleep issues to my weight, are going to all correct themselves once we can start a treatment plan. He says that once we get started, it will take three months for things to really show significant progress, but you have to start somewhere. And I’m OK with that.

With any luck by the time the year is ending, I’ll have the energy and the ability to start doing more of what I had hoped to start doing this summer, including starting my livestreaming on Twitch. I had intended to start that August 16th, but it looks like that will be pushed off indefinitely for the time being.

Support Means The World

While I appreciate the support, I’ve gotten from people so far, there are things you can do that are helpful and things that aren’t helpful at all.

I don’t need any medical, spiritual, or dietary advice.

I may be a witch, but I’m a witch that likes science and facts. I am all for energy healing, yoga, meditation, oils, yada yada yada but NOT over medical treatment with a doctor. For me, those things should be complementary, not exclusive. But if you believe essential oils in your drinking water cures all ills, more power to you, but as Arya Stark would say, “That’s not me.”

I also don’t need anyone “reading me” and telling me what they’re “psychic impressions” or “psychic diagnosis” is of me or my condition. If I want to have someone do this kind of work for me, I’ll seek it out in my own way. See my post on psychic over-sharing.

And while I can appreciate that there are other who have either been through this themselves or who have known someone who has had something similar, sharing my story is not an invitation for people to now tell me what the “right way to treat this” is. I’ve already had several people reach out through email and DMs with suggestions of diet plans, medical tests to get, treatments to seek, and so on based on their experiences. I appreciate the concern and certainly welcome support and well wishes, but when it comes to how I’ll address my health, I will continue on my own path with my doctor.

If you really want to show some support, here are some tangible ways you can help.

Right now, other than moral support, I am most in need of financial help since I’m not able to work at full capacity. Since this all started, I’ve now found myself in pretty substantial debt, and there are tests my doctor would like to do that aren’t covered by insurance and that I can’t afford.

Consider purchasing my Intuitive Badass tarot course before it retires on August 18th. If you know someone that you think would be into it, please let them know or find one of my posts about Intuitive Badass in my Instagram feed and share it with your followers. It’s only $97 and is a pretty awesome program (that’s not just me saying it, that’s what my students say). And the best thing is it’s “go at your own pace” so you can take as much time as you need for each lesson.

? Consider shopping in my digital shop. You might want to pick up my Mabon ebook or Samhain meditation kit to get ahead of the curve for the upcoming sabbats.

? You can donate directly to me via PayPal in any amount you’d like. That helps me to pay bills, buy food, pay for my medications (I have three now…I’m doing for high score…lol), and so on.

? You can also become one of my patrons over on my Patreon page. I’ve changed my Patreon and now offer a single membership tier for only $8 a month.

? And lastly, if you’d like to just send a small “get well” gift my way, you can check out my Amazon Wishlist. A new deck or a book always helps lift the spirits.

In the meantime, I’ll be focused mostly on myself and my health. Most of the time that I’m able to give to other things will go to my patrons and to small projects like blogging and doing what I can with Modern Witch.

But here’s to pushing forward for a quick and speedy shift in health!