Our bodies were given to us as gifts. For many years, I took my body for granted. I abused it. Instead of nourishing it, I was making it toxic with fast food, alcohol, tons of medications, and a lack of exercise.
At one point, I became so overweight that getting out of bed was a struggle. I was a 36 years old woman living in a 100 year old’s body. I was also working a lot of hours, traveling, and spending days and nights away from my family. I was barely holding it together, trying to be everything to everyone. I was stressed out, miserable, and neglecting my health. I had suffered from Arrhythmia, chronic migraines, and panic attacks, but none of that got my attention. I was in denial and chose to ignore it.
Not only did I become disconnected from myself but also from the people that I loved the most. My husband and I grew apart. I came home exhausted, and I barely had the energy to talk to my husband or spend time with my daughter. The stress was unbearable, and the guilt from not spending time with my family weighed on me, but I kept going and ate food to stuff my feelings of loneliness and frustration.
I was in total and complete denial, going through the motions of life but not living. Until one day everything finally boiled over. My body and my heart couldn’t take it anymore. It was one of the scariest experiences of my life.
One morning after returning from a business trip, I was in the bathroom when I suddenly felt like I couldn’t breathe. I lost my vision, became dizzy and off-balance, and had a pain in my chest that was like nothing I had experienced before. Numbness took over my body, and I could not breathe or speak. I struggled to tell my husband that I couldn’t feel my body, then I lost consciousness. The next thing I knew, I was waking up in the hospital having suffered congestive heart failure. I was lucky that my husband reacted so quickly and called 9-11.
The symptoms of a panic attack are often indistinguishable from an actual heart attack so when they told me I had suffered heart failure, I could not believe it. I was still in denial, and when the doctor asked me why I was killing myself, I got angry and defensive and did not want to hear it.
“It was especially painful for me to realize that my heart did not fail me….I was failing my heart.”
It was painful to accept that I was doing this to myself. It was especially painful to realize that my heart did not fail me, I was failing my heart. My dad died of a heart attack when I was seven years old so I knew the devastating effect that growing up without a parent could have on a child. And yet I had almost done that to my kids.
I was putting my kids in the same situation – not taking care of my heart was the same as not taking care of my kids – neglecting myself was the same as neglecting them.
It was then that I finally accepted that I needed to make significant changes in my life if I was going to save myself and my family.
Does any of this sound familiar to you? Are you surrounding yourself with very toxic relationships or a job that you hate while drowning in self-doubt and a deep-rooted pain that won’t go away? Are you trying everything to make it work but it seems like nothing in your life is going right? Are you suffering from anxiety and depression and maybe overeating to hide your feelings?
If that is the case the first step is to ask for help.
As American Heart Month comes to a close we must not stop taking care of ourselves and creating a healthy mind and body. We must remember that heart disease is the leading cause of death amongst men, women, and people of most racial and ethnic groups in the United States. And that stress, an unhealthy diet, lack of physical activity, and excessive alcohol are just some of the factors that put us at risk for heart disease.
Mental and emotional health must be at the center of the conversation. Throughout my journey, I discovered that to live a full and happy life, I needed to confront the traumas from my past and heal the wounds that created shame and self-loathing.
I quite literally needed to heal my heart.