"My GAPs healing journey began in April of2010. It’s not as dramatic as some others stories, but it has changed my life.
I led a relatively healthy life as a child, though looking back I can see the signs of GAPS emerging from an early age. As I toddler I suffered chronic ear infections that were treated with antibiotics, and as an 11 year old I began my menstrual cycle accompanied by cramps that would keep me in bed for two days, and sometimes cause me to throw up or pass out.
My parents were very health conscious and I grew up on a macrobiotic -based diet.
It excluded processed foods and sugar, but was also low in animal fats and high in grains.
I continued in good health through my teen years aside from the cramps and low energy. I was tired a lot, but I actually just thought I was lazy!
I moved out at the age of 18, and the staples of my diet became brown rice, kashi cereal, soymilk (chocolate and vanilla), orange juice, and veggie sandwiches. I thought I was eating well, and perhaps in contrast to the rest of America I was. But I began to suffer from anxiety that I couldn’t shake, and it worsened over the next three years. I started feeling depressed, but never admitted it even to myself.
I felt I should be able to control it and it was some weakness in my character.
I developed painful ovarian cysts that ruptured once a month, leaving me exhausted and feverish, usually developing a sore throat for a few days afterward.
At the age of 21, due the stress of two emotionally traumatic events, I became severely depressed and quit eating (at this point I think I’d recently become a vegetarian) anything but fruits and vegetables and rapidly lost 20 lbs off of my 125, lb, 5’3 frame. By the time I had regained any desire for food, my perception of myself had altered so dramatically that I believed I was fat and continued to starve myself in the fear of gaining weight.
My thought patterns were obsessive and anxious and I was absolutely miserable- but I never reached out for help, once again unable to admit to myself how bad off I was.
Several months later I developed mononucleosis and herpes-like lesions over my entire body. My face became paralyzed from Bells Palsy. I took a round of steroids.
My boyfriend (now husband!) deployed to Iraq and I spent the next year working as a personal trainer in a local gym and exercising for hours every day. The exercise helped me to deal with my emotions (not only was my boyfriend deployed, but my tight-knit family was enduring an extremely painful and drawn out emotional event.) and to keep my anorexia under control. If I exercised enough I didn’t feel so awful about myself and allowed myself to eat fairly normal amounts. As damaging as it may have been, it was probably a lifesaver!
A year after my boyfriend returned we got married, and by that time I’d started having migraines and was so exhausted that I started to slow down on the exercise. I remember feeling so awful on our honeymoon that I could hardly make it through the airport. I’d sit on the luggage when we wee standing in line so I wouldn’t get too dizzy. Funny thing is, I was in complete denial. I thought I was healthy; that it was all in my head, like I was just too lazy or something. That’s what I’d always thought when I was a teenager too- I thought I was lazy, but in reality I was freaking TIRED!!
I remained in denial until a year later, when I became pregnant. My body just shut down. I couldn’t eat, I could hardly move enough to even take a shower. I had migraines almost daily. I landed in the ER with dehydration; I came down with pneumonia (more antibiotics’). It was a huge wake-up call and I finally realized that I was a mess. I surrendered to my body.
After six months I was finally able to eat, and I packed 60 lbs on in four months. I had benign heart palpitations and coughed phlegm up incessantly, but the Doctors said there was nothing “wrong”.
I’d planned a homebirth, but after three days of labor I couldn’t dilate past a two and had to have a c-section. Incredibly, God blessed us with a perfectly healthy baby girl. She had a beautiful temperament and caring for her was (and is) a great joy.
I was amazed at the perfections that came from such a terrible mess. I couldn’t believe I’d produced such perfection out of my brokenness.
A few months after she was born, I crashed again. Exhaustion, headaches, 30 lbs overweight, so much water retention that it hurt to be touched. Eczema, hair loss-my neck and back hurt so badly I could hardly function by evening. My anorexic feelings were back, but this time I couldn’t appease them by whipping my body in to submission. I began working with a Naturopath and after months of trail and error we narrowed it down to Malabsorption.
When my daughter was 10 months old I put myself on the GAPS protocol. Within a day I knew it was the key. I felt AWFUL, but at the same time felt better. It was the strangest feeling. All of my symptoms began to reverse themselves. By the time I’d been on it two months it felt as if my body had quit fighting with itself. I hadn’t felt like this since I was a kid! It was like light suddenly flooding my life.
I really didn’t realize how sick I was until I started feeling good. In a way I really just thought I was a hypochondriac, until I went on GAPs and it showed me what “normal” feels like.
I’ve been on GAPS for 10 months now, and feel as if I’ve been given new life.
I want to encourage anyone who’s having health problems to give GAPS a try. I would never have pegged myself as a GAPs patient – after all I had no obvious intestinal disorders- but boy was I!
And if you don’t feel well, please don’t tell yourself that it’s in your head, or that it’s just the way you are. Trust what your body is telling you, and be compassionate enough with yourself to take the time to heal.
I’ve tried to squeeze my whole life story in to a page or two, and can only hope that I’ve been successful in relating the main points. I offer it in the humble hope that it may plant a seed in someone’s mind, the seed that may begin his or her healing story as well" - Kate
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