My House is Making Me Fat

It may sound dramatic, but this is not hyperbole … My house is literally making me fat. Sick and fat.

For the past two years, I’ve been sequestered in my home. At first, it was government-mandated because of the pandemic and all. Now, it’s self-imposed because I’m ashamed of how I look and devastated by how I feel, both physically and emotionally.

Without knowing my backstory, this probably sounds both ridiculously vain and ridiculously made up. It’s not. And it’s actually very difficult for me to talk about, let alone write about. But writing is how I process my crap, and putting this out there will hopefully remove some of the shame I feel surrounding it all.

First, you should know that my body image is very much tied to my PTSD and past sexual trauma. I also have Hashimoto’s Disease and only half a thyroid, both of which negatively affect my metabolism, weight, mood, and menstrual cycle. I went through menopause almost 10 years ago and fought like a bitch for years to lose weight and build muscle. In 2019, I was lean, strong, and energetic. I felt great, and not just because I was actually able to wear shorts without my thighs rubbing together. That muscular exterior was my amour. It made me less anxious. It made me brave. I felt unstoppable and unfuckwithable (yes, I’m making that a word — #unfuckwithable) — something I had never felt before in my life. When someone commented on my body, it wasn’t about being small or thin. It was about how strong I looked. As someone who’s had her body violated over and over again, and felt helpless and weak, I needed that. I just didn’t realize how much I needed it.

Fast forward to March 2020. I was detoxing from mercury poisoning (you can read my post on that here) and, as a result, felt a little off my game. It sucked, but it wasn’t horrible — I was still lifting heavy weights and crushing goals. Then the world shut down for COVID, and it’s like the wheels fell off the bus for me.

By October, I started feeling weak and gaining weight. Lots of weight, weekly. My joints ached and I felt like electricity was running through your body. I started having night sweats and nightmares again, so I wasn’t getting much sleep. The fatigue was debilitating. My vision wasn’t as sharp, and I had constant headaches (something I hadn’t experienced since my 2018 PFO closure surgery).

I figured it was just a really bad autoimmune flare up brought on by the changing seasons and the stress of the world. My endocrinologist tweaked my meds, but it’s only gotten worse.

In the past year and a half, I’ve lost all muscle definition, gained more weight than I care to announce (when you have to buy underwear in a larger size, you know it’s more than just a few pounds), am exhausted all the time, cannot sleep through the night, am in constant pain, and my eyes burn and blur daily. My thyroid medication is no longer effective (which means I have virtually no metabolism), and I’ve experienced break through bleeding three times now — which is scary AF since I went through menopause nearly ten years ago!

Needless to say, I am physically and mentally a mess. Not having control of my body is very triggering for me. It makes me feel helpless, weak, and ashamed.

But I’m also a fighter. I’ve been reading all the books and listening to all the podcasts, researching nonstop to find answers. I’ve begged my doctors to take me seriously and run tests. Eventually they listened and, thankfully, were able to rule out a bunch of the really bad stuff. But anyone with a chronic illness knows, not having a diagnosis is super frustrating because it means there’s no plan. No fix. No cure.

Recently, I tested positive for toxic mold exposure. I’m still not sure if it’s the answer to all my issues, but it’s a start.

Ironically, last month, I was tasked by one of my writing clients, AutoimmuneSisters.com (an online community for autoimmune warriors), to write an article identifying the connection between mold and autoimmune disease (you can read it here). My research showed that mycotoxins (aka, toxic mold) have a strong, widespread negative impact on health — particularly for those with autoimmune diseases and/or gene mutations. Lucky me, I have both an autoimmune disease and a gene mutation.

Without going into all the scientific research (if you’re interested, you can read my dumbed-down summary here), the big issue is that prolonged exposure to mycotoxins (i.e., poisonous mold spores) causes chronic inflammation, a well-known trigger for autoimmune disease, causing a cascade of problems. It also acts as an endocrine disruptor, messing up thyroid and sex hormones. This is particularly problematic for someone like me with a thyroid-related autoimmune disease.

While the illness manifests differently for everyone (and sometimes not at all, as is the case with the rest of my family), for me, toxic mold exposure has caused skin rashes, vision impairment, memory loss, headaches, joint pain, muscle weakness, nerve damage, fatigue, gut dysbiosis, GI infections, constipation, and dysregulated thyroid and sex hormones causing rapid weight gain, break through bleeding, and uncontrolled mood swings, among other things.

Knowing I have mold toxicity is one thing, but resolving it is another. I’m starting a detox protocol with my doctor, but there’s a lot of mystery around what works and doesn’t work. Plus, the process is long and complicated, which just adds to my stress and fatigue. But the big issue is finding the source of the mold so we can eradicate it. Figuring it had to be our house since I never leave, we had both the inside air quality and outside stucco tested. And guess what? We have mold.

Now the challenge is remediating, which based on our situation, takes months to complete and costs way more money than we have available. The stress of it is killing me, and I’m seriously contemplating starting a GoFundMe page to raise the money so I can breathe again and actually recover … But asking for help is not my strong suit, so that won’t happen. (That said, if you have spare six figures lying around that you want to gift me, I won’t hate on it.)

In the meantime, I’m going to keep fighting. I’m going to keep pushing. I will get my health, my life, and my body back. I’ll probably cry a lot more, but I will beat this eventually. Like my office sign says, I’m a badass motherfucker (with issues). I got this.

-LJDT