The Lowest Point

I’m grateful to the people who have used their public platforms to help bring awareness to chronic Lyme disease and the very real suffering it can cause. Justin Timberlake has described it as “relentless and debilitating.” Avril Lavigne called it the “worst time in her life.” Bella Hadid describes it as “hell.” This is the harsh reality of what this microscopic bacteria and co-infections can do to a human body, mind, and spirit.

I remember opening my eyes on a cold winter morning in late 2021. It was the same view looking out the same bay window, to the same backyard, from the same bed, and quickly registering that I had the same chronic pain in every cell, bone, and fiber of my being as I did yesterday, and the day before, and the day before that, and every day for the past 3 years straight.

It was in that moment that I resigned I would end my life. I could no longer go on feeling this way, as this was no way to live. I wasn’t living. My body was shutting down and I was alone. I was sad in a way I'd never been before realizing I was going to have to do this, but I was calm and resolute in my decision. The pain that drove me to this lowest point is not the generalized definition of pain you'll find in a dictionary, but this is the only way I can describe what I felt day in and day out for years:

• Imagine having done the most intense weightlifting workout; one of those where you use the heaviest weight and go the hardest you’ve ever gone, and worked out every single muscle group in one day to the point where your whole body was shaking and you couldn’t go any further without collapsing. You wake up the next day and you can barely move.

• Now imagine in that state, that you also have the worst flu you’ve ever had. You know those flu body aches (on top of the workout muscle aches). You’ve been in bed for days...your whole body aches, you’re so weak you can barely make it to the bathroom. Your skin hurts to the touch…. the softest touch anywhere on your body feels like someone is digging deep into the darkest black and blue bruises.

• Now imagine that for some great force you were able to get out of bed and walk out your front door, and you stand in the middle of the street and a truck going about 50 mph hits you head on, sending you to the hospital with broken bones, ruptured organs and you're all scraped up and bloodied.

Sounds comical (and impossible), but that's the best way I can describe the depth and breadth of the pain that was absolutely relentless. And that doesn’t even include the foggy brain, memory loss, and the mental and emotional despair and confusion. That was my existence…. and which is why I felt ok with my decision to end my life. At this point in my early 40’s, I wasn’t about to continue on like this for 3 more years, let alone decades.

The thing is, I didn’t look too much different on the outside despite having gained 35 pounds in 6 months a couple years prior as a result of when the floodgates of this disease opened. I was definitely puffy and swollen but had you not known me prior, anyone looking at me would have no clue what I was going through or that anything was wrong at all. The harsh and ugly truth.

But as you can see, I am still here. So please, if you find yourself in a similar situation, it is possible to get better...and in some ways, even better than you were before Lyme disease. 

Keep putting one foot in front of the other. I see you and I believe you, and I believe in your ability to heal.