08 - Rachel Whitfield on her Long Covid Recovery

Episode 08 of the Long Covid Podcast is a conversation with Rachel Whitfield. Rachel has recovered from Long Covid and we talk through some of her experiences and what she thinks has helped her to recover. It gives us all a little bit of hope!

It goes without saying (but I'll say it anyway) that neither of us are medical professionals and although the things that Rachel talks about have helped her, there is no guarantee that they will work for everyone. Everyone's journey is different, so please do seek medical advice before trying anything. 

Rachel’s Blog: https://mylongcovidjourney.wordpress.com

The Lightning Process: https://lightningprocess.com/

Nicole Sachs – The Cure for Chronic Pain - Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-tz1Du69PhcBkC3-9_Mgmw & Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-cure-for-chronic-pain-with-nicole-sachs-lcsw/id1439580309

Alex Howard - Optimal Health Clinic https://www.theoptimumhealthclinic.com/

 
Books: 

The Intelligent Body by Kyle L. Davies

Breathe – James Nestor 

Anthony Greenfield – the 5 forces of change

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For more information about Long Covid Breathing courses & workshops, please check out LongCovidBreathing.com

(music credit - Brock Hewitt, Rule of Life)

Transcript

Jackie Baxter  
Welcome to the long COVID podcast with me. Jackie Baxter, I am really excited to bring you today's episode. Please do check out the links in the show notes where you can find the podcast, website, social media and support group, as well as a link to buy me a coffee if you are able, you should not rely on any medical information contained in this podcast and related materials in making medical health related or other decisions, please do consult a doctor or other health professional. I love to hear from you, if you've got any suggestions or feedback or just want to say hey, then please do get in touch. I really hope you enjoy this episode. So here we go.

Jackie Baxter  
Welcome to this episode of the podcast. I'm really excited to have Rachel with me today, who is a long COVID recover, if that's a word. So perhaps you could introduce yourself. Who are you and what did you do before COVID? Oh,

Rachel Whitfield  
before COVID. I know, like BP. Now, isn't it for that? I'm a mum. I'm a single parent mum, and I think that probably feeds into the whole story. I thought I was the most amazing multitasker, as most mums probably do. Aside from that, I'm also a runner, or at least I enjoy running. Really enjoy cycling, and I guess in my work, I'm a leadership trainer. So I work a lot, particularly within the NHS, which I think was quite useful in my journey. I've got quite a good working knowledge. I'm not a doctor, but a working knowledge in terms of different specialties. I've also done quite a lot of NLP training, so that sort of feeds in professionally for COVID. My life consisted of running a lot of workshops. I live in Bristol, mostly running the workshops in London. A lot of travel, a non reflection, quite a lot of stress around who was going to look after my little girl, and packing bags and unpacking bags and hotels, and then when COVID hit, definitely quite a lot of stress around suddenly, all my work getting canceled and having to kind of reinvent my world on Zoom, which which I've done. So I'm probably busier now, actually, but without the travel. Pros and Cons aren't there in terms of COVID, but definitely some silver linings that I'm at home where I am now.

Jackie Baxter  
Yeah, the realization that how much work could be done remotely and how much travel was completely unnecessary has been a game changer for quite a lot of people. Hasn't it? Well, exactly. So your initial illness? When did you get ill? Yes,

Rachel Whitfield  
I kind of knew I was going to get it because my daughter's dad had just phoned to say that he had it, and she'd been with him that weekend. About four days after she'd been with him, she was pretty asymptomatic, apart from on the Wednesday, she complained about my cooking, said it tasted weird, which is not that unusual. I'm not the best cook, but I just thought, hang on a minute. About three days after that, there's two things. I had really bad brain fog, and then just this awful, awful kind of dreaded feeling. It's kind of anxiety, but it was more than that. But I carried on working for a few days because I was on Zoom and then went downhill. But on reflection, I think the initial illness was quite mild. I sort of thought I'd got away with it. Went back to work kind of a week and a half later. Thinking back, I do remember my mum phoning me and saying, Be careful. You know, you do get these post viral fatigue. So I said, but I'm alright. I've been really fit before. It was marathon training, and so I just thought that I fought it off, went back to running. It was Christmas time. I got out, went back to normal, really. And then about a week and a half of kind of normal, I just realized I was sleeping for 12 hours, and I just kind of crashed. And I don't even know how to describe that crash now, but I just couldn't think straight. I didn't know what I was doing. I just, like, hit a wall. I just could barely function. And somehow I actually carry on working and crawling into bed in between, and I feel alright. I've met a lot of people that have typical crash, and then you feel alright for a few days, and then you get back up on the horse and normal, and then crash. And that went on for a couple of months. And each time the kind of bit where you felt all right, and it felt more severe every time. And then I think at one point, I realized I was diarizing all of this. I realized that it wasn't even boom and bust, it was just bust. And I think at that point, I just had no choice but to stop. Yeah,

Jackie Baxter  
I mean, I think there's obviously a million theories about it, isn't there, but a lot of people, you know, similar story, relatively mild illness, thought they were fine, were fit and healthy beforehand, and tried to go back to their normal life. Because why wouldn't you, you know, you were told that, you know. For a week or so, and then you're going to be okay, unless you were really old. And then months or weeks or whatever, down the line, then the long COVID would then hit. And then what I always wonder is, had I rested more at the start with the long COVID not have happened? And there's no point going down that road, is there? No.

Rachel Whitfield  
I mean hindsight, I think, is useful only in terms of going forward and thinking about, what do I not do the next time, once I'm well, but in terms of going backwards, you don't absolutely know, although I've got some theories, certainly for me, what helped what didn't. So

Jackie Baxter  
you hit this crash where you were almost forced to stop and think, right, okay, maybe I need to take a step back here. What happened at that point?

Speaker 1  
So, I mean, I think I worked out that exercising wasn't a particularly great thing to do, so I stopped exercising. Got better a bit, but still continued working. And then I canceled work. And it was quite funny, because I canceled work for a couple of weeks initially, and as soon as I canceled, I was like, oh, isn't that funny? I feel a bit better. And then as it got closer to the work again, I'd feel worse, and I thought, why is this happening? And actually, what I worked out was that was the beginning of the pattern, and it just was like, every time I had work coming up, I would crash, and every time I canceled work, I'd feel better. And I think that's when I realized that it wasn't just about physical stress. There was an emotional, cognitive worry about performance, worry about health. That was also kind of feeding in. It was definitely neuro as well. There was some shortness of breath, but it was like pins and needles. My back would burn, but not all the time, my throat, my ribs. I mean, at one point I went Gray. I looked at myself in the mirror, kind of end of February, and I was just gray. And I think once I made the decision actually stop, I canceled all work for six weeks, which I've never done. And I think at that point I've never slept so much for a week or two. And I think the grayness started to then go, but I still COVID toes, my digestion was weird, like looking back, I had to actually write some things down, because you sort of forget, because the symptoms kept changing and varying, and new ones would come along, and then you get rid of other ones, and then other ones would reappear, which I think is the nature of it, and actually was the thing that has driven my reasons as to what I think it's All About as well. I think then when I properly rested, but it wasn't so much physical rest. Some of it was that, but I think it was just getting rid of anything that I had to do. I outsourced everything. So the school run my work, and I did stuff, and I kept a structure, a bit like you're saying, but there was nothing that I had to do that definitely made a difference in terms of, sort of slowly starting to, kind of emerge very slowly, and start to then be able to put little bits back in. I

Jackie Baxter  
mean, that's really interesting. What you say about the mental load, because until I got ill, I'd never even thought about that, because energy was not something that I was short of. And then suddenly you realize that, you know, obviously physical stuff take energy, but also anything you do, reading a book, looking at emails, even just thinking, I mean, you know, you get stressed, and that hits a big relapse. You have an argument with your partner or your kid, and suddenly you just think, why must I crashing? And it's because of the stress of it. So that's the bit that a lot of people forget about, I think. And like you're saying, with work, that's stressful. Yeah, that's

Speaker 1  
the worst bit was I couldn't decide whether to quit work or not. And I've got clients that I've built up over years, and I felt like I was letting them down. And so I was just having this argument in my head, you know, as to, should I, shouldn't I, should I, shouldn't I? And that went on for a week or two, and actually it was my daughter's sister, in the end, when Rachel, your health is more important than anything, that persuaded me actually to go with it. And then I realized that my clients were fine. In fact, one client, I said, Can I have a month off? And she went, how about two? And you realize that all this pressure that you put on yourself and the debate that's going on in your head isn't helping. The pressure's coming from you more than anywhere else, or what had happened to me, and as soon as I made that decision and made those phone calls, I started to feel better. And again, that was real key in terms of eventual recovery, was actually that pattern and noticing that, yeah, definitely

Jackie Baxter  
removing stress, definitely important. I mean, I guess we have to hope that these patterns of removing stress will be things that will continue into the future, because in a high stress life is probably not good for you, but we all do it, don't we? You know, it's your livelihood. I

Speaker 1  
think some of us are better at doing it than others. That's what I've worked out. And I thought I was an expert at doing it and cramming everything into my life. Oh,

Jackie Baxter  
yeah. You know, it's the whole thing about if you want something done, give it to a busy person, isn't it? I never say no to anything. And suddenly I'm finding that yeah, like you say, outsourcing everything, and my partner makes all our meals. I love cooking, but I just don't have the energy for it, so I sort of have to learn to do that, even though I don't like coming to rely on other people, because it makes me feel helpless.

Speaker 1  
Yeah, it's that learning to ask for help, actually, isn't it? It's incredibly humbling. I'm going to cry in a minute, not necessarily a bad way, which. Us that whole if you ask for help, people are really willing to do it. They really

Jackie Baxter  
are. And it's the being able to actually ask in the first place that I think is maybe the hardest thing. Sometimes absolutely,

Speaker 1  
I think at one point my boyfriend did my cleaning, which I think was my lowest of my low

Jackie Baxter  
that's so lovely. But

Speaker 1  
same time is bit embarrassing when you're used to being able to do all these things and more, yes.

Jackie Baxter  
And then you have to say, Please, can you clean my toilet? Basically? Yeah. So you mentioned that you've got a theory about what causes long COVID, yeah.

Speaker 1  
And just actually be listening to this book. Well, it's all audio because I started doing a lot more audio books, but it's called the intelligent body by Kyle Davies, and it just been cementing all the things that I kind of knew. But I think what I quite like is that he's very pragmatic, but he's very lay he's a doctor, but it's very lay terms, but it just kind of has made so much sense. So I've listened to it once, but I've been really listening to it over the last couple of days. But I believe, and there are lots of theories, aren't there. I believe that ultimately it was your autonomic nervous system. And the reason I believe that that was at the heart of everything was because it controls everything, you know, all of unconscious things. Certainly, you know, whether it's hormones or digestion or inflammatory responses or, you know, our sleep, it, it controls everything. And I believe that in order to work out what happened to me with long COVID, you kind of have to go back to the four virus my lifestyle before, which we've talked about, I think about 10 or 15 years before, I had a scuba diving accident and I'd nearly died. Yeah, someone introduced me to something called the yes tribe, and the idea of saying yes to things. And I think I've been saying yes to everything for years. Then, as a single parent and a woman, I kind of believed that I could work full time and look after my daughter and all the hobbies I want to do and run a marathon. You know, I always thought stress was kind of a mental thing, and I thought it was about things that kind of happened to you. But I think it's a kind of external thing, but it's also our response to it. And I don't know that I was necessarily great in terms of my response to things, my emotional response, but also what I realized is it's physical, it's emotional, it's it's mental. And I think what happened was that my stress bucket was full, and then COVID came along, and it was like last straw. So it could have been COVID, it could have been something else. That's the kind of final trigger. So it's easy to blame COVID, but I genuinely believe that it burnt me out. But I was kind of right. I've met some brilliant friends, by the way, over the last kind of year, because they're all people like me, you know, either a love for life or a love for kind of physical things, or wanting to make the most out of life. So I think it essentially burnt me out. And the easiest way that I worked out to explain it is that when you have a virus, your body goes into fight or flight in order to get rid of the virus. And so it switches on things that it needs to to deal with the attack, and switches off things that it doesn't. And then when you come out of the virus, and that's why you get all the flu, like symptoms and everything, I think, in long COVID, it doesn't really switch off, you know, you've already got a full bucket, and it doesn't take much to then switch it back on. And the body's not designed for that everyday living, I think generally puts people into fight or flight modes, you know, always being all the rest of it. So that's what I believe happens when I think there's basically then two parts to getting out of it. One is to switch the fight or flight off, which is why things like meditation and being calm and reducing things that you have to do, and reducing physical exercise and all those things to get you to a place of calm and less symptoms. So I think there's that part. But then, of course, you can't just live your life doing nothing. So the second part, then is about, how do you build back up? And I think it's almost like if you're not careful, I think I almost have post traumatic stress, where those crashes were so traumatic that your brain then remembers them, and then you get the fear of, well, if I increase is that going to happen? And in my view, actually, I worked out that the fear of overdoing it actually created, certainly some of my later crashes. When I look back, there are things that definitely didn't add up. And the only explanation for me was that I was expecting pm, so I started to get that. I don't know if that makes sense. It's definitely not been easy, even when I thought I was well, I had echoes for another month where your brain almost is saying to you, are you sure you're okay? Are you sure you are and trying to sort of send messages. So if I just really learn how to deal with that in order to completely get well,

Jackie Baxter  
yeah, with trauma, it's quite a big thing. I mean, you know, you're just, you're not, you're unused to being ill, aren't you? I mean, I never really been ill in my life, and you don't know how to deal with it because you've never done it before. But also then I got ill right at the start of the initial update, and then there was basically, unless you were actually dying, they didn't care, because there were so many people that were so much worse off, they just couldn't handle someone who wasn't actually dying. So that sort of feeling abandonment. There's a lot of trauma around there for a lot of people. But even anyone who wasn't ill during that, it's, it's still there, isn't it? You know, you start to get better, and you think, oh, you know, I'm getting better. I'm getting better. And then you crash, and you get that hope, and then it's dashed over and over and over again. And that does something to you, doesn't it?

Speaker 1  
It's fear. I think I called it anxiety. And actually, I don't think it was, it was this awful impending fear. And, you know, I've actually gone back on some of the long COVID sites, and some of them are supportive. I'm sure they all intend to be, but on some of them, there's an awful lot of fear and worry and theories, and all of that has an impact, doesn't it? You know, some people, you look back and they've actually had some pretty significant traumas in the year, up to COVID, and some people haven't. But it's almost like stress can be a big event, or it can be just that, drip drip drip, stress, trauma. And I think in some ways that drip drip drip is different, but for me, that's the one I find hardest.

Jackie Baxter  
It's certainly easiest to ignore, isn't it? If there's one big event, it's very obvious, you know, a little bit at a time building up, it's very easy to ignore and to not realize, until you look back on it and you think, Oh, yeah. You know, that was an awful lot of stress, but at the time, I didn't really realize. I just dealt with it because that's what we

Speaker 1  
do, yeah. And I think if you're in brown head, you just assume that everyone's dealing with and having the same experiences. It's only afterwards, some of my friends have actually said, my best friend said, Do you know Rachel? I'll be honest. We wondered when it would happen because, you know, we couldn't understand how on earth you were able to be in London most week when you also had a daughter, how you could be married in training. You were always off traveling, and you were incredible. But we did wonder when it would happen. And I've had that feedback a few times now, in a very supportive way. Does make you think, if not COVID, would there have been something else?

Jackie Baxter  
Yeah, it's interesting that you say that because you hadn't seen that for yourself at the time, because you were just doing it, it was just what you did. A lot of people are similar, you know, you see on the support group, so many people that said, you know, I was doing this, I was doing that. I was fit and healthy, I was young. You know, you know, I was training so many fit people and the sort of people that have very busy lives.

Speaker 1  
Yeah, absolutely, if I look back, I quite often had colds. And I probably had colds more than anyone else. And when I've spoken to other people, there is a definite pattern in terms of maybe warnings before hindsight. Hey, oh, exactly. It's interesting. So I work within the NHS across all specialties, and I have this doctor. He was talking about chronic pain and how, for example, if you break an ankle, even when it's healed, quite often, people still have pain. And it's the idea that there aren't actually pain receptors in your skin or anything. It's just your brain's interpretation and how, quite often people have pain, even though there's nothing wrong, because it's almost like your brain's going, Are you sure you're alright to do the thing that hurt you the last time you did it? And I thought that was quite interesting, and it almost made me understand it more than some of the fatigue symptoms. So yeah, that's my theory. When you're out of it, looking in, you start to observe other people, and you start seeing the same patterns. And one of the most fascinating ones was a girl on one of the COVID sites that I've been sort of buddied up with. She'd been quite poorly, but she was starting to get better. And then her best friend got COVID and tested positive, and she was convinced that she had it. She had all the symptoms again. And then after four PCR tests, she had to admit to herself that she didn't have it. And then the symptoms went she's now, she's not quite healed, but she's on that way. But that was her big realization that your brain is very capable of interpreting things based on your kind of fear that on, I mean, what's real, what's not, it's all interpreted,

Jackie Baxter  
and it's like those fears are totally justified, but yeah, they can definitely send things a bit out of whack as well, maybe.

Speaker 1  
And it's realizing that it's real as well, because your brain produces this kind of fight or flight response, but definitely real. You know, my tone kind of swelled up and went purple. Yeah, it's real. It's not just in the head and all of those things. But I think it is kind of realizing that the two systems, for me, work together, mind and body, yeah, both ways, yeah.

Jackie Baxter  
That's something that a lot of people forget. Treating physical symptoms is much easier than treating symptoms that you can't see. Yeah, but they are both important healing one will help the other. So you say you are now recovered fully. When did you realize you were better? And do you still worry that you're going to relapse, or if you managed to get away from that worry?

Speaker 1  
Yeah, so I've actually got some dates on May the ninth. I think that was a weekend on the on the Friday, I booked the Lightning Process, and I thought about it for a couple of months. I must have decided at that point that was going to be well, because my books a very, very busy week work the following week and the week after so I almost couldn't afford not to be so I think something must have flipped in my head where I finally realized that I probably was well, but I couldn't work out quite how to stop the worry or stop the unconscious. Generating symptoms when I increased exercise. So did this training course, and I think on the first morning, I decided that I was well, and I tested it out, and I went through a bike ride and had awful anxiety, but kind of managed to talk myself down somehow and finish the training course. And the coach, I've spoken to her several times since, said actually I stopped listening, because I was just like, Yep, I get it now, I get it and well. And then that week, I went and did a 5k run. I rode my bike for 20 miles. My parents, who hadn't seen for a year and a half, came down and stayed, and my mum had been most amazing support all the way through my illness. And I remember saying to my boyfriend, I just feel overwhelmed. I just feel this overwhelm. And then a couple of hours later, I just suddenly felt this appalling fatigue and then this fear, and I was like, Oh no, it's happening again. I've got it wrong. I think I slept that day. And then the following week, I worked, but every day I was feeling a bit more tired, and I and I rang the coach and just went, it's not works. We've got it wrong. I've got it wrong. And she went, Whoa. Where are those beliefs going? And I think I've done enough training anyway to go, Yeah, okay, I'm starting to worry. And my and a couple of friends went, we can see it in your body language that you're worrying. And I was like, don't feel like I'm worrying. I just feel fatigued. And I think I listened to a couple of podcasts about mind body, and I went, she's right, it's exactly what it is. And so I had a few of those. I call them echoes, and it's almost like your nervous system is still a bit sensitive. So one of the parents at school said something that triggered me, and I sort of noticed those familiar things. Then I got a cold, actually, and that freaked me right out, because it was the familiar fatigue, and I was so relieved when it was a cold. And then I went camping one weekend, and on May the 31st which I think was a Sunday, I woke up and I just thought, I'm better, and I hadn't really looked back. I went for a run that day. And I think speaking to a lot of people that get healed, I call it wobbles or echoes. There's a little bit of that where your brain maybe is kind of going are you sure? You really sure? Now, I don't look back. I'm not expecting any crashes. I feel like I know the illness and myself well enough that that's okay. That said. I've got a cold at the moment, and I've felt a bit stressed over the last couple of weeks because life's built up. Everyone's busy. I've said yes to things. I'm now at home more so I can say yes to more. And it is that kind of thing careful with yourself that you don't basically go back to those same habits. And so I think when you say, how do I know I'm better? And do I still worry? No, but I am very conscious that my personality is such that I've met people that have had fatigue several times. You know, they've got EBV and they've had it and they've recovered, then they've got long COVID, and you start realizing your personality could that stress bucket could start getting full again, very easy. So that's why I'm at I think is just that kind of, hang on Rachel, slow down that compassion, that for yourself, that you learnt, make sure you keep that in. Think about some boundaries that are worthwhile keeping in, and just some of the learnings, like, I don't want to kind of get rid of those learnings, because actually, there was a gift in there. That's how I now feel.

Jackie Baxter  
So you know what to look out for, almost, don't you? And then how to deal with it. I

Speaker 1  
think so. And I think I celebrated the first cold because I thought, yeah, my immune system is working. But actually, I've just had another cold two months later. And think actually, is that really because I'm actually already starting to do too many things. And you know, you want to have a full life, don't you, but then you want it to be quality. And so reigning back, I think, is my message to myself, yeah,

Jackie Baxter  
it's a balancing act, isn't it? It's great that you know, despite the horrible experience of it, that you've been able to take something positive from we'll be right back. I'm interrupting myself for a second to tell you about long COVID breathing. The Fabulous Vicky Jones and I have teamed up to bring you long COVID breathing. We are both passionate about sharing our expertise and experience of the breath and how incredibly helpful that can be with long COVID. We've worked together to develop a course that is specifically tailored to those with long COVID. It's a six week course with 12 sessions all delivered online. The community feel and learning that we're all sharing is such a joy to find out more information and to sign up for our courses, workshops and other shorter sessions. Please check out the link below long COVID breathing.com or email long covidbreathing@gmail.com to start your breathing journey with us.

Speaker 1  
Yeah, I listened to, I can't think what it was now, but they were talking about COVID or chronic fatigue or any or any of those family of illnesses. People talk about it being a gift. In February, I was just like, What are you on about? How is this a gift? This is not a gift. But actually, I now do. It was horrendous, but I do look back at some of it like i. Sat in my garden in March and April, in my hot tub, doing nothing apart from reading and listening. And actually, there's bits that I kind of look back fondly and realize that perhaps in amongst all of that, there was a gift

Jackie Baxter  
that's maybe easier to see the positive once you have recovered to think when you're maybe still in the depths of it. It's I certainly find it's very hard to see any positives, even though, at the time we think, you know, that was a nice meal, you still you see much more of the negatives. I think

Speaker 1  
100% and actually, if someone had said that to me, and I'd have been close to them, I'd probably that doesn't take away from horrendousness, because they want to go back there. 100% don't want to go back. But there was some things that I want to carry on with my life that I learned through that, yeah,

Jackie Baxter  
on your log, which is fantastic, by the way, and I will put a link to that in the show notes for anybody that wants to go and read that. But there's quite a lot of things that you talk about that have helped you, so it might be useful to just talk through some of them, just in case, some of them are useful for other people. So I think, yeah, one of the big things that you mentioned was diet and hydration benefits of healthy, balanced diet, and you mentioned that you thought elimination diets weren't such a good idea for you. Certainly, I know other people have different theories about why they are or aren't, and obviously one treatment doesn't work for everybody. But what were your thoughts on that?

Speaker 1  
And I have to say, I'm not a doctor. I'm not pertaining to know anyone else, and so it very much is an opinion that I formed, rightly or wrongly, just based on kind of observation and doing a bit of reading afterwards. And I think what was interesting is that the first person I met that had long COVID, and I met her through a friend of her friends, she'd gone down the low histamine diet, and she was really insistent that that was the way forwards to the point where without any kind of other medical advice or anything else, I actually did try it for a week, and I think I just got very confused. I couldn't work out some things said that they were low. Some weren't. And also, I'm a vegetarian, and I love tomatoes and avocado and spinach, and so it was almost by accident that I didn't go down that route, I think. But now that I'm out of it and looking back, I genuinely think that elimination diets are supposed to be for a very short time in order to work out if there's a particular foods that's a problem. And what I end up seeing on some of the groups is that people kind of cut out all sorts of things. So you're cutting out whole food groups, the issues don't necessarily go away. So then they look for other reasons as to why it might be and cut out other foods. And before you know it, I've seen people that are just very ill, that can hardly eat anything, and then when people are trying to reintroduce things, because there's also this kind of expectation and this worry, and is this the thing that could have caused it people then struggle to reintroduce and so I think just for me, I took the decision that actually just a rainbow diet was probably the best thing for me, and I'm glad that I did that. And water, I certainly is a lot of thing about hydration, and I certainly think that that's probably underrated in terms of how important that is. And I think the other thing is, it's thinking about what's the cause, what's the effect. And so if all you do is treat the effect, i The Food things, it might have an impact on your gastro issues. But if you're still firing these stress responses, if you're still living in fear, if you haven't, kind of grasped the idea that also it's about getting into rest and repair and calming everything down. Then are you actually kind of solving the problem, or is it more the kind of bandage, you know, different things for different people. Some people swear by it. Who knows? You know, if something helps, something helps?

Jackie Baxter  
Well, yes, exactly, yeah. I mean, I guess the key there is don't do anything too drastic without consulting someone who knows, there are a lot of people that talk about the low histamine diet, especially people with a lot of the gastro sort of issues, and they say that it does help. And if that does, that's awesome. But yeah, I think everybody just trying it because it works. For some people is like, you say, maybe be not helpful.

Speaker 1  
There's someone that I really like that I've seen interviewed, and he's called Dr boom Lin, and he specifically was talking about pots, which I didn't have, but he says, you know, try it for a couple of weeks if you want to. There's no harm in trying these things, but try it for a couple of weeks and then really assess. I've seen people being so upset because they can't eat anything I'm trying to introduce. And you do sort of wonder, have you created as many issues as you tried to solve, has it really worked? Was it the best thing? And the answer is, I don't know, because I'm not those people. I'm glad I didn't do it.

Jackie Baxter  
So, yeah, the next one of breathing. I mean, this has been a huge game changer for me. I wish I'd known that my breathing was rubbish, like, a year and a half ago, because it might have helped more things sooner, but you've mentioned that it helped you a lot, and why do we not know about it? I mean, like this thing should be shouted from the rooftops. I

Speaker 1  
know it's mad, isn't it, when I saw the breathing physio, so I saw someone on Zoom, and I genuinely didn't think that I had a breathing issue. I was a bit short of breath, but I was only doing it to rule stuff out, actually, because I was on a mission to get better. I'd made a decision, and so I was trying everything. Anyone mentioned just in case. And when I met her online, she said, Oh, you look fine. I had a bit of a sun tan because I'd sat outside. And then she counted my breaths, and she said, Are you a mouth breather? Are you a nose breather? I said, I think nose and I saw myself sneaker a breath through my mouth. I had no idea. And I think maybe that's it. People don't necessarily know. COVID is assumed to be just a respiratory disease, so when you didn't have the cough, tests don't reveal anything lung damage. I don't know. You don't put two and two together. And I was asking my partner last night, you know, what is it about the breathing thing? And he said, You know what? We live in a society. You go to the doctor and you expect some medication. We expect a cure. And he said, If I went to the doctor and he said, You've got dysfunctional breathing, he said, I think I'd be complaining. That's it. We kind of live in a society where we think A causes B, so if you take C, and I think it's so simple, because it's automatic, you just assume you're breathing. And I don't know, and I'm never going to know whether my breathing was dysfunctional before, and whether that meant that I was more likely to get long COVID, or whether COVID and the fear and the illness creates, you know, you don't know which came first. There's so many people on these long COVID sites that talk about shortness of breath and worrying about, is it lung damage? And I'm convinced for most people, it's dysfunctional breathing.

Jackie Baxter  
Yeah, we want a magic pill, don't we, because then you don't have to make any effort.

Speaker 1  
Um, have you ever read breathe by a journalist called James Nestor, and it's fascinating, but he talks about post traumatic stress disorder, you know, people coming back from war, and quite often they have dysfunctional breathing. And he names all the symptoms, and it's exactly the long COVID symptoms. It's fascinating to realize that something so simple can make such a difference. I

Jackie Baxter  
think it's both actually, isn't it? It's one of those circles of panic that just gets worse and worse.

Speaker 1  
And I think actually just psychologically, it helped me, because it became part of my routine every morning. I got an app listen to that every morning, and it became part of my routine, but when I felt myself starting to go into a blare up, I found I could quite often get myself out of it by focusing on my breathing, and it helped my sleep as well. When I couldn't sleep, I was able to really focus on my breathing, but I don't think I knew how to breathe. That's the other thing. I thought I was breathing. Yeah.

Jackie Baxter  
I mean, I've taken to just posting the same thing. Every time I see somebody that's talking about shortness of breath, I'm like, Are you breathing properly? Have you actually properly learned to breathe? And again, yeah, because it's something that you have to invest time and effort, and people don't really want to do it, whereas, actually, it's something that we could all be doing. And it's not a cure. It's not going to fix everything, but it will help a bit at least, and it's not going to do you any harm. Now,

Speaker 1  
I just thank Malachi stars that I was open to everything, for being curious, just trying every avenue and seeing what

Jackie Baxter  
works. Definitely, yeah, sort of similar to the diet thing. I mean, a lot of people are taking vitamins, supplements, cocktails of things. Some people swear by them. What are your thoughts on that? It's

Speaker 1  
an interesting one. The truth is, you're not going to know, are you? And I rattled my partner was like, I really don't think you should be taking all of these because I literally was taking everything that anyone mentioned on any site. I'm not sure. And even as I was taking them, I wasn't sure, but I didn't want to stop in case. But now, looking back and having done a bit of research, the take from a lot of people is that actually, if your diet is balanced, then there should be no need for a lot of these. And then it's also questioning, you know, which ones are absorbed. So I still now take a vitamin D, B, 12, a, probiotic and some magnesium, and I take that in one tablet now, and everything else I've stopped. And, you know, at the time, I thought, well, do no harm. It doesn't matter, and it might help. But actually, since then, like someone said, actually you shouldn't be taking zinc, for instance, for extended periods. So I don't know That's it, isn't it? You're never going to know you take these things. And the belief that it might do something, my guess is it may not have done because my diet was pretty good. You just

Jackie Baxter  
don't know. Do you and you know, you start taking something vitamin D and you have a good week, is it because you took vitamin D, or is it just because you had a good week and you're just never going to know that? Yeah, I mean, I I've not really taken much because I thought, Well, my blood test came back normal. My diet's not bad, so surely that's more important. And then people start swearing by something else, and you sort of think, well, you know, and like you just you don't know. But I've been a bit wary of thinking, Well, I don't want to take stuff I don't need, because is that not going to do more harm than good? And having no medical knowledge of my own, other than what I've read on for groups and Google, it doesn't seem like a particularly good source of information, really. You just, you never know, do you absolutely

Speaker 1  
I've stopped suggesting to people. I've got a lot of people that have wanted to buddy up with me or message me, you know, just strangers from all over the world. And I've stopped suggesting that, let's put it that way. It's not. My list of things to recommend.

Jackie Baxter  
We'll be right back. Hey there. I'm just jumping in for a second to see if you're enjoying this episode. If you're finding it useful, maybe you would consider sharing it somewhere, a friend, a group, or even on your Twitter feed. If everyone was able to share just once, we'd be able to get this information. Out to even more people who really, really need it. So please consider sharing some work if you possibly can. I hope you enjoy the episode, and thank you so much.

Jackie Baxter  
Yeah, I guess unless you've got a deficiency in something, it's probably not the most important thing. And I

Speaker 1  
think that's the nature of this whole illness, is you never know exactly what helps what doesn't. I mean, there's some certain patterns, because I diarise that I'm now convinced, you know, we talked about the stress, so I'm convinced about that. But there's some things that you just had a bit of a better day, and then you look back, or you've had a bad day, and you start searching for what that could

Jackie Baxter  
be. Sometimes there is no reason, and searching for the answers just causes you more stress. I'm saying I want answers. I want to know why something's happened. Why was that a good week? Why was that a bad week? Why did I feel that what caused that? And it gives you something to think about, but at the same time, it's yeah,

Speaker 1  
it's why, in the end, I still go down the autonomic nervous system and stress response, or stress response, which which impacts the autonomic nervous system, which puts you into fight or flight.

Jackie Baxter  
So I say a lot of people have, again, been talking about rest and pacing, and this is something that people are terrible at, partly because they have things that they have to do. You know, you have children. You have to look after your children and work, for some people cooking their meals. There's so many things that we have to do. And do you have any advice on pacing and how to get real, proper rest? I don't

Speaker 1  
know if you've come across a guy called Alex Howard who runs an organization called the optimal health clinic, and he does quite a lot of free videos. And out of all the kind of explanations of what causes it, he calls it the maladaptive stress response. It's sort of advertising a program, but there's like three hours worth of three videos. And his quote is, it's not what you do, it's how you do it. So if you do something like walk down the road and afterwards, don't worry about it, then you'd probably be fine. You know, if you do something with enjoyment, and I've seen this again and again, where people go on holiday or they go, you know, I went camping and suddenly felt loads better and was able to do more. And I think it was just because I was out of the environment of being ill. There was no association. I wasn't having to do anything. And you sort of see again and again, that it's not so much about what you do, it's about your attitude to it. So I convinced myself that I couldn't walk to the end of my street, but I was walking in my house several 1000 steps a day, and that was fine. So you know, if you're going from meeting to meeting to meeting, and you have to and then you're worrying about your health, can end up in a crash, whereas, if you're doing something that you want to do, and you're enjoying it and you're distracted, you don't have time to ruminate again. I think there's two parts to the illness. There's the kind of I definitely needed to take some time off work just to reset. And for me, that meant wiping the slate clean starting again. But I wasn't bed bound, and I got outside and I still had a structure. I just took away the stress and reflection. And then I think there's also where it's about, how do you then increase and start to gradually put your life back, but really thinking about that stress response, and how do you deal with the anxiety of putting things back when you were going down. These were things that were making you ill,

Jackie Baxter  
yeah, and taking breaks in between, doing things as well. You know, you need to do your hoovering and your dishwasher and your laundry. You can do all of those things, but just make sure you have a break in between all of them. Whereas, again, you know, people are terrible at resting because we don't have time to rest. But actually, if you take the time to rest, you can actually do more.

Speaker 1  
Yeah? I think it's maybe the cognitive rest, yes,

Jackie Baxter  
yeah, the real proper rest, yeah, yes. Again, it's a balancing act, isn't it, because we also are very, very bad at doing too much.

Speaker 1  
So So I also it's interesting, when I was at my absolute worst, I nearly it was right in the middle of the pandemic. And I phoned my parents and said, I just need to be looked after for a while. And I phoned my daughter's dad and said, Could you come and just live in my house so that I can go and see my parents? Were not quite sure how long, and I couldn't work out how I would actually get to them, because I couldn't walk to the train station, or I couldn't even walk if I was dropped off. How would I be three train journeys? And so I didn't, and I'm actually now really glad I didn't, because I think it meant that I had to be okay for her to come back from school. And to begin with, that meant that we just lived on Domino's. But then gradually I could start to. See that I was getting a bit better, because I was able, if I chilled out all day and de stressed all day, I was able then to start to kind of look after her, and almost having a little bit of something that I needed to do, I think probably meant that I my baseline remains a bit higher than it would have done if I'd have completely just disappeared to bed, and thinks I've seen people where they've become bed bound, and then they're just so scared to even get out of bed. So I think it's a balance, isn't it, between not doing too much because physical stress is real too but also not doing too little, because actually you do need your life to come back eventually, and sometimes it's also about, how do you cope with the stress? So now there's as much stress in my life as ever, but I think I'm better at not accepting the invitation to feel internally stressed. Not perfect, but you know, and that's part of rest as well, isn't it? Is working out what to worry about and what not to worry

Jackie Baxter  
about, being able to switch off as well, and I'm terrible at it, which I guess leads us into the next one, the yoga and the meditation thing. Again, this is something I've got into because I cannot switch off my brain except when I'm doing a yoga nidra, where someone is literally telling me not to think about anything else. That is the only time when I can chill

Speaker 1  
out. Yeah, and that's actually really interesting Jackie, because that, I think, is the rest, isn't it? It's that able to switch off. And I think we're not very good at that. Society expects us to always be on. And so for me, that rest wasn't necessarily needing physical rest in quite the way that I interpreted and pacing. Actually, for me, it's about that ability to take some brain time and switch off, which I just think is it's working out what's good for just a normal, healthy person. I mean, it's the sort

Jackie Baxter  
of thing that we should all be doing all the time. I mean, I remember years and years and years ago hearing a podcast on some seriously fit athlete, and it was basically saying, everyone in the entire world should be doing some yoga and meditation every day, just as part of their week. And I remember thinking, yoga, yeah, I'd rather go for a run. And now I'm like, oh my goodness, he was so right. And now I sound like him, but it's so true. It's so good for you, but that's it.

Speaker 1  
I always thought that, yeah, I had about half an hour. Yoga was a bit of a waste of time, and going running was better. And I always thought that if you ran more, you were more fit. But actually, I realized that's not true. There is a point where you're fit and there's a point where training for marathon doesn't actually make you fit. It goes beyond that. And so the yoga thing has been a revelation about every Monday evening I still do yoga. I was doing recovery yoga class that was brilliant. It was kind of a cut down yoga for people that had had long COVID, run by someone that had long COVID, and I'm still actually now doing yoga classes with her, but normal yoga classes. And I always thought yoga was about just moving, but actually,

Jackie Baxter  
yoga is about breathing. Yeah, yeah. I didn't realize that until I started doing it.

Speaker 1  
It's about being compassionate to yourself and setting an intention, and as you say, switching off and really focusing inwards and all those things that I certainly wasn't very good at doing.

Jackie Baxter  
Hopefully that's a pattern that I can continue. I never thought I would be one of those people that had a yoga membership and did yoga every day, and now I am. We said earlier, it's hard to see the silver linings, but actually that is probably something I would like to keep doing. I

Speaker 1  
was notorious at not cooling down or warming up, just go for a run and come back and do something else. So the yoga actually is just a really good thing in terms of flexibility and muscle groups and stretching and all of those things that I think she kind of get older is a really good thing to keep doing. I

Jackie Baxter  
mean, I found the yoga and the meditation has helped me with the sleeping problems. I mean, you mentioned insomnia. A lot of other people mentioned that too, and I don't know, for me, it tends to go on waves. I get a horrible week, and then I'm back to normal. But it's so disruptive to any recovery, isn't it? Did you find that the yoga and the meditation kind of side of things helped with the sleep? Or did you find something else?

Speaker 1  
I've got to say, I have all the symptoms. The Sleep was the worst, and I think part of it was I did this fatigue rescue course quite early on, and she said, You've got to be able to sleep. Do everything you can to be able to sleep. If you can't sleep, you won't recover. And

Jackie Baxter  
that puts the pressure on, doesn't it? You can't

Speaker 1  
sleep, and then it becomes a thing, and then you convince yourself you'll never recover unless you sleep. And then you're into this vicious cycle. And I was obsessed with it to the point where Facebook was recommending me products to buy for sleep, and I was buying them. And the more I bought, actually, the worse it got. I saw a herbalist, and in the end, the herbalist went, I've tried every single thing I've got. You mentioned Zopa club, there's a tranquilizer. I'd go with that. And she said, I can't believe that. I'm telling you that it's awful, isn't it? And I now see it on the site where people are desperate. I so empathize things that helped. So one was that I read a book, and I can't remember who wrote it, but it talks about different types of sleep, and the fact that actually, if you sleep for a couple of hours, that's when you get your deep rest. And. As long as you sleep for a couple of hours, you probably have done the rest and repair bit. It's just you're going to be a bit grumpy. But what I noticed is that if I didn't fight it, I felt better. And so actually, I realized that it was the stress of not sleeping that made it a million times worse. So I can't remember which came first, but I was taking some zopiclon, and that was quite stressful, because the GP kept saying, I'm not going to give you any more. You've only got this supply. So that was stressful. And then at some point, we decided to try mitrazepine, which is antidepressant, and it also makes people drowsy. So I started taking mitrazipine, but at the same time, I think I just had enough, and I decided to accept it. And I realized that if I could just sleep for a couple of hours, and then I could just lie there, and I was probably getting enough rest, I could see I was on an upward trajectory anyway. And so I don't know whether it was the master opinion that kicked in or that I just gave up and just went solid. I can't fight this. I can't make myself sleep. I'm just going to chill out. Somewhere between those two things, I started sleeping. You convinced yourself you're never going to sleep again. Before you know it, you've catastrovised. It's

Jackie Baxter  
that pressure again, isn't it? You put pressure on yourself to do something, and suddenly that makes it so much harder to do. If I was to

Speaker 1  
do it again, do you know I would now, I think I would have got an audio book. I probably would actually just go, do you know what? Let's just do something else and not obsessed by it, because I wasn't working anywhere, I didn't have to do anything. And I would have taken that pressure off. And I think just the very taking the pressure off would have meant that I would look forward to bed, and I probably would have slept.

Jackie Baxter  
There's definitely a tendency to panic, isn't there? Then the more stressed you get over it, the less likely you were to sleep. So you've mentioned the Lightning Process a few times. What is it and how did it help you? It's a training

Speaker 1  
course, really, and a lot of it is talking about beliefs, and it's also talking about some of the things we've talked about, in terms of stress response and about expecting something, and if you expect something, then you get it. But essentially, it's a training course, so over three days, I did it over zoom, but you also then have the same trainer who gives you support. So I think I've still got some time left, still you then have some sort of one to one support, and I think different people will take different things. For me, it just cemented everything I believed anyway about the stress response. So I've been told that the first thing that would happen to me when I crashed, I'd get some warning signs, and one of the warning signs was the COVID dread, that awful anxiety, and then I feel tired. And so there was a certain order to my symptoms, and I almost believed that once I got the dread, it was inevitable, and it was a sign that was going to crash. And what the lighting process made me realize is that wasn't actually true. That was the actually the sign of the first worry thoughts. And unconsciously, I'd, you know, there'd probably be some thoughts I wasn't even aware of, that was actually the first sign of awareness. And we call it kind of being on the edge of the pit. And make you realize that you've actually got a choice, really, that you can kind of recognize that, for me, anxiety, but some people have, you know, the glands go up or there'll be something else. That's the first kind of sign, and making you realize that actually there is a kind of choice, and it's not easy. It's not about positive thinking. It's not about telling you that something's made up, but there is a choice in terms of how you deal with, essentially, that stress response and so, so there was lots of work around noticing some of the things that you'd essentially got very good at. They talk about being a genius, and I realized, I've got I've become a genius at anxiety. I'd become a genius at worry. I'd become a genius at getting overwhelmed. I become a genius at being very sensitive if someone said something, so they can make you just realize some of the patterns in the thoughts and some of the patterns in the behavior. So that was definitely a big part that actually I still am kind of using now that I think even if you're healthy, there's some things that you could learn. And so I think there was that, and also what I realized is certainly at the stage that I was at where I was on this upward trajectory. I'd got rid of some of my symptoms. I'd started reintroduced things that pacing narrative was no longer useful for me, because actually what was happening is the fear of overdoing it was causing me to crash, and the absolute belief, I mean, there was one point where I walked a mile, but I by mistake, 1.1 miles, and I started to kind of dip. What the coach said that was the absolute light bulb moment. She said, You have enough energy. It's just that you've got a leaking bucket. And what's happening is that stress is firing again and again and again. You don't even necessarily realize it, but other people will see it, which is what had been happening. My boyfriend could see it before I could. You're then putting yourself in fight or flight. You might not even know it, but that's what's happening. And I realized that the energy narrative for me now doesn't 100% fit. I think you do run out of energy, but you run out of energy because you believe. If that you've done too much and inadvertently you're then firing it. That for me was just this light bulb moment. Yeah, my fundamental beliefs at that point changed. I got on my bike, got my heart rate up to 100 and 50s. 36 hours later, awful, awful COVID dreads. But I knew what it was. I felt like I had to face it and go through it, and once you go through it, and you don't crash. And honestly, I was round the kitchen talking to myself in different ways, yeah, once you go through it, you realize, actually you can control some of this stuff. I don't know. Was I just ready for the Lightning Process? What was

Jackie Baxter  
it? Maybe that if you've done it two months earlier, it might not have had such a good impact, I

Speaker 1  
don't know, so I asked the brain about but she said, You do it when you're ready. And for me, you know, I had done a lot of NLP training anyway, I'd listen to an awful lot of Mind Body stuff. There's a great podcast called The cure for chronic pain by Nicole sacks, and I got really into that. So I think I was already primed that I knew that was the answer. And so that helped. Whereas if you're kind of going into it going, No, no, I don't agree with this. I think you have to be psychologically open to the fact that that is what's going on for you. Who knows I did it? Oh, that's

Jackie Baxter  
awesome. So looking back, is there anything that you'd have done differently with the advantage of hindsight? That's a really impossible question I know I

Speaker 1  
probably would drunk as much champagne at Christmas. I don't know whether that made a difference. I probably wouldn't have gone out the week I got out of isolation and done a couple of 10 days. I probably wouldn't have gone on a mission to lose the weight that I put on to COVID in quite the way that I did. Do you know what? I listened more so my mum warns me about post viral fatigue. And to be honest, I poo pooed it and went, you know, don't that's just typical mum, my partner told me to rest, and I poo pooed him as well, my partner on a couple of occasions. And I think you've got to be really careful, because he did say, you know, I think it's worry. I think that's my anxiety. And I was like, Don't be ridiculous. What you're saying, you're saying, it's all in my head. You know, there's interpretation, isn't there, and something said in one way and you hear it in a different way. But I think if I take anything from this, it's actually the realization that an outside perspective can sometimes be the link to the blind spots that you might have. So I think I would listen to him if he's listening, listen to him more Google less. Some of the Facebook groups have been a godsend, because they tell you about some of these things. But also there's a downside that you can convince yourself. I mean things that are even more sinister, long COVID, hideous, but some even more sinister things I think would have thought about social media, maybe, and how I use that, because it can completely freak you out. That

Jackie Baxter  
is really interesting. You said about people other than yourself having a much more accurate idea of what's going on with you, because I am a terrible judge, or, as my partner, can sort of look at me and be like, right? You're having a good week, you're having a bad week. You need to rest more, whereas I often don't see it until I look back on it. But because he's seeing it from not being me, you can see it in a slightly different way. So listening to others is probably a good advice. It's

Speaker 1  
interesting, my daughter's dad once I told him I was better. He said I actually knew that it was fueled by stress. And I said, Well, why didn't you say that? He said, There's no way I'm going to tell you that, because you'd have accused me of all sorts. And so that's quite interesting, that you see some of these narratives of people freaks out because the doctor said something, or their partner said something and they felt that they weren't supportive. And I think sometimes it's turning around and realizing that maybe people are giving you feedback. No one likes feedback. You know, quite hard not to get defensive. But I think if you can kind of take some messages from from people. I mean, my partner told me I needed to be more positive, and we've laughed about it now, I'm always like, what? But what he meant was, you know, mindset is going to be key, and when I reinterpreted it, who is right? Because

Jackie Baxter  
someone telling you to be more positive when you're feeling incredibly ill and have been for months, it just makes you want to punch them, doesn't it? I mean, it's, it's something that people saying, isn't it? Oh, stay positive. You know, if they don't know what you're going through, and they mean it well, but it really doesn't help. But actually, yeah,

Speaker 1  
work on your mindset. Piece you're able to then reduce the stress, sustain some of the things that you know work for you for longer. Basically, if you're in fear and frustrated and worried, and all of these things, they can feed into the cycle. So that mindset definitely,

Jackie Baxter  
and that kind of leads me in quite well to the last thing I was going to ask is, how do you deal mentally with all of this? You were fit, healthy, very active person before this, and suddenly your life is turned upside down. Did you manage to find any joy throughout all of this? And what do you do when you're feeling really low?

Speaker 1  
Yeah, I mean, honestly, there was quite a few weeks where I didn't really want to live. I don't know if it was more sinister than that, but I would wake up and just all I wanted was my old life back. And I would ring my mum and just go. I complained about my old life sometimes, but that's all I want back. You know, I just want that back. And she was brilliant, because she's like, Rachel, that's not going to happen right now. You need to accept it, you know? And so that acceptance piece, I think, was, was key, but it's not accepting that you're going to be living with it forever. It's that kind of here I am right now. There's no point fighting it. There's that realization that it's for me was the hardest thing I think I've ever done. I think some of my management training helped. So I came across this guy called Anthony Greenfield, and he wrote this book called The five forces of change, and I basically lived by that because, you it's grief, isn't it? For me, it was like grief of my old life and what I'd lost, and that's essentially a change curve. They said that there's five motivations, and I forget them all, but it was like having a routine, having purpose, thinking about connections, yeah, and I realized that every day I created this routine, and I think I created some purpose. I actually told myself that was going to get better, and when I did, I was going to help other people, and that it was going to be a hell of a journey, and I was going to learn along the way. And I'm lucky, because I really like reading. So I read loads, some of which was helpful, some of which was less helpful, but I kind of enjoyed that learning and that reading. And I realized when I was distracted, I started to forget about long COVID. I was just in this bubble. And there was a point where I said, I'm always starting to enjoy this, so I don't want to be here, but it's alright, and there are some benefits. I think there was that the connections. Was another piece. So I joined this yoga group, and it was every Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, with a few weights and the different levels. And each week I could see that it was getting a little bit better. I'd do an extra rep, but mostly it was about the fact that I was showing up and also was connecting with other people. I think that was really key. And there was a point where I was really angry at everyone, the government, my partner, because he didn't get it, my ex. And there's then there's a point where I stopped being angry. That was a key turning point as well. And I think the other thing that both my mum and my boyfriend were brilliant at doing was telling me that I was going to get better and telling me I was in an upwards journey. And I started to realize that when people asked me how I was, I could say I'm ill, I'm going to be ill for years, or I could change the narrative and force myself to Sage, you know what, I'm getting better and just stop it there. And I think that made a difference as well. Just that constant kind of priming yourself as to what was good as opposed to what wasn't like, definitely, without a doubt, the hardest thing,

Jackie Baxter  
yeah, and I was talking to the rake, and they said, you know, you're always moving forward. You know, if you feel like you've gone back, you're still going forward, even though it doesn't feel like it, and that is quite a hard thing to understand when you just feel like you're in the middle of a big relapse and you're never going to get out of

Speaker 1  
it. Yeah, I think that's been a big learning, and I've had a few people message me and go, I was doing so well, and now it's all over, and I'm back to square one. And it's that realization that a bit of a flare up, a bit of a dip, a bit of a relapse, that doesn't mean that you're back to square one at all. As quick as you can pop in, you can pop back out as well. But it's not linear, is it? And we expect things are linear, and it's not that simple. It's a journey, but there's often a learning somewhere attached. And viewing it in that way, I think is, is really useful.

Jackie Baxter  
Like you say, the up and downness of it, it makes it much harder to see, you know, any improvement anywhere, or any hope for improvement as well, which again, feeds into the mental side of it, doesn't it? Like the

Speaker 1  
podcast I talked about Nicole sacks and acute chronic pain, but there's this one on relapse, and she talks about relapse as part of the healing. But there's a bit in there where she said the ear of the relapse actually can create the relapse, you know, so you might feel a bit bad, and then there's this whole other layer, and before you know it, you're in the pit. And I thought that was really useful to listen to. I'd recommend anyone listening to that. There's quite

Jackie Baxter  
a few things that you've mentioned in there, and I'll try and put link to them in the show notes if anybody wants to follow any of that

Speaker 1  
up. I think the other thing is finding people that have healed. I was really lucky that a friend of a friend then introduced me to someone that had healed. And I think that was also a kind of nugget where I realized the possibility

Jackie Baxter  
seeing somebody else has done it. Problem with some of the support groups, you only ever see ill people in there, the people that have recovered have left usually, so you don't see the fact that there are so you just think, oh my goodness, this group is just filling up and up and up. And up and up. It's like your bucket. You're getting more and more and more people in. And what you don't realize is that actually there are people that are recovering. You just can't see them. Yeah. Thank you so much for talking to me. It's been really, really interesting and uplifting as well. Hopefully there's something in there that can help people, even if not all of it. So thanks so much. Thank you so much to all of my guests and to you for listening. I hope you've enjoyed it, or at least found it useful. The long COVID podcast is entirely self produced and self funded. I'm doing all of this myself. If you're able to, please go to buy me a coffee.com, forward slash long COVID pod to help me cover the costs of host. Digital podcast. Please look out for the next episode of the long COVID podcast. It's available on all the usual podcast hosting things, and you get in touch. I'd love to hear from

Unknown Speaker  
you.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai