Exploring why it may be worth considering cervical instability as a root cause of fibromyalgia with some real food for thought on how the wide-ranging symptoms of this one single, often hard to notice, factor can really start to add up.
Exploring a known link between covid-19 and certain issues relating to the vagus nerve (amongst others); how does this relate to some of the more scattered seeming symptoms of long covid and what can be done about it in the hopes of making a speedy and full recovery?
I do believe that constantly drip-fed overstimulation traumatises those of us without appropriate filters and barriers to cope with sensory experiences that are not designed to accommodate neurodivergence and in such a way that compounds with time, affecting us in ways that other people can’t even begin to imagine as they’re simply not having the same experience as us. Quite literally, the only thing we have in common with the majority of people who are apparently dealing with the exact same situations as us is that we’re physically in the same space…because the way we experience that space is a whole other matter. We can try to explain (with variable degrees of success) but we can never take them there with us so they understand! Until we give this effect the most appropriate name, trauma, we don’t deal with it appropriately either…because we just keep on sucking it up and wondering why we struggle and burn out so often and in so many apparently unusual or creative ways. Yet in the case of any other trauma we would work much harder to notice when it was happening, to put a stop to it and heal from it…but how do you heal from something that is relentless and ongoing, which you have to expose yourself to in order to be part of anything in life that has something to do with being around other people or in the world as it has been made to be, which is highly overstimulating and often too much for our differently wired systems?
News flash: hypermobility is not all about joint subluxations and is not as rare as they say, especially for women, but is actually a spectrum condition, meaning your most bewildering symptoms might be on that spectrum. You need to cease feeling like such an imposter in order to start looking hypermobility right in the eye because only then can you start to tackle it as a possible source of chronic pain, dysautonomia, GI issues and a whole host of other health mysteries.
Exploring some quite compelling links between sensory meltdown, shutdown and synesthesia and a possible causal relationship between them, explored from a personal-anecdotal and research point of view.
Exploring possible explanations for links between weather changes, episodes of hypermobility (increased laxity), oxalate dumping and sudden flare-ups of physical and/or emotional pain, all as linked to neurodiversity and hypervigilance.
Exploring the idea that certain chronically painful bodies have formed the habit of storing oxalates (toxic anti-nutrients) from common food sources in order to protect us when, really, this only does great harm...and how to get out of the subconscious mindset of vulnerability in order to heal.
If TMS is behind your chronic condition then, until you accept this and take the necessary action, you’re unlikely to move on. You have to believe in it, commit to doing the work and garner the faith that you can and will get well again. You have to let go of any negative feelings that arise from the realisation you’ve been caught in your own mind-trap all these years because it really wasn’t your fault as you had no idea and the brain is extremely good at doing this thing that it does to distract you from intense emotions with symptoms (and utterly convinced it is doing the right thing; that your very survival depends on it, thus it gives it everything it’s got). That’s a huge amount to contend with; the odds were stacked against you all along, but not anymore, now you know and can learn the tools for healing.
The very fact of constantly having to adapt, to meet alien-feeling situations on their terms, when others just slide into circumstances like a hand into a well-fitting glove, exhausts systemically when we don’t even notice how much we are having to do it, how much we are constantly having to bridge the gap between what is and how we are. This may have been damaging our health for years, as surely as long term smoking or heavy drinking, only we didn’t realise it until it was too late to avoid the consequences to our health. This is why I am passionate about helping other high adapters, women especially, to realise, embrace and advocate for their neurodiversity early on in life. It seems to me, autistic women often have a sort of hypermobility of a more subtle kind; one that enables them to become whatever people expect of them…but at what cost.
The slow and steady loss of independence that can happen when you have a disability or health issue can be quite pernicious, quietly gnawing into the roots of your confidence until its too late to undo. Exploring ways that we get to feel independent in spite of other limitations and how important it is to preserve them.
Living whole 