The girl (me) in this photo ? may look happy, healthy, vibrant, fit, and like I’m lovin’ life. IT’S A LIE! A lie I tried to force my self to believe every day, to the point where it nearly killed me.
I was working 12 hours a day, taking breaks only to exercise (approx 3 hours per day!), 6 days a week. This went on for many years. I used work and exercise to define my self-worth and as an escape from dealing with my soul wounds.
I did reach a bottom and got help. I removed the workaholic in me. Then I subconsciously amped up the exercise addict within me to the point of #exercisebulimia. If you aren’t familiar with this term, it’s when someone uses exercise to an extreme to control weight and/or offset calories consumed. I would HAVE to work out or I would have a panic attack. Everyone around me thought I was just super into fitness and really healthy. Yes I was into fitness but out of self-hate (for my body) not out of self-love. I would have NEVER stopped this insanity (there’s even a fitness program with this name ?) if I didn’t get side-lined with Adrenal Fatigue stage 3 (boarder line 4). My body nearly stopped producing cortisol (a hormone required to stay alive) because I had my body/mind in such a constant state of excessive stress, that it was pumping excessive cortisol for years. My lifestyle taught my body that I didn’t need to produce anymore cortisol as I had too much in my system. I literally had to hold on to the wall to take a shower. There was zero energy and therefor zero ability to exercise. So you can imagine what that did to me mentally, given exercise was my main drug of choice, my false identity, my life, my way of coping, my everything.
I resented my diagnosis of AF for a long time and now I’m thankful for it.