xmas from the outside and the story so far by ozone bubble Blog entry

Blog: The Natural Way
by ozone bubble

xmas from the outside and the story so far

life - xmas + natural health!

Date: 12/25/2006 5:34:49 AM ( 18 y ) ... viewed 1985 times

6.45am
Well its xmas morning here in the UK. It’s my first xmas as a Muslim, which means it’s my first non-xmas. It’s been an experience, since my family does xmas in a big way and I had no way to get out of the house this year. There have been some weird moments and this is one of them: my family is downstairs opening presents and I am upstairs… writing this. The room that is always used for xmas day is right below my bedroom, so I can hear them so it’s a little bit sad for me. In some ways it’s a relief not to be a part of xmas anymore, not just because of the obvious avoiding of the usual stress of the ‘festive season’. Having DID around xmas was always a huge stressor. I have a lot of triggers around this time. This means I lose a lot of time, generally get disorientated and struggle to know what is going on, and get very depressed. I know my alters have a hard time too, this year since I’ve developed my awareness of them I’m starting to understand why I always found xmas so hard. I don’t know the exact reasons (most likely something traumatic happened around that time in my past) but knowing that I lose time and have other problems is down to DID and is not ‘just me’ like how I always thought it was makes it a lot more bearable and less scary. That and having a wonderful boyfriend to support and ground me!

So I’ve really got into the whole natural health thing this year. Partly it’s a distraction to help me deal with all these issues. If I have some project or other going on, it helps me to stay grounded. It’s another way of escaping my problems which I know is not the healthiest thing, but its all damage control at the moment until I am coping well enough to start therapy. My enthusiasm for natural health got reignited a few weeks (? Sorry I am guessing since I’ve lost most of December I have no idea about the length of time) ago when I was doing some late night research. I love researching and spend a lot of time when I am struggling to cope trawling the net for all kinds of information hungry to learn and find out the best sources of information. (My coping skills are not great I know but it’s something!) I don’t remember what I was researching but somehow I stumbled across Hulda Clark’s book online. Annoyingly I haven’t been able to remember the link, and I didn’t bookmark it so I can’t post it here. After I spent the rest of the night reading it I was hooked on finding out more about natural health. Eventually, about 6am I found curezone. It’s been a real treasure trove for me. I’d come across Hulda Clark a couple times before, once through a friend and once through some other research although I never found the book. At that time, I thought it sounded great but did not have enough info, and also was too scared to go through with it. That’s why I love curezone because there are people who are going through it and people who have gone through it always on hand, and there’s a wealth of experiential information. What more can you ask for? By the time I found the oil pulling forum I was so eager to get started on trying something. I was amazed by the health improvements people were talking about and it was something I could start straight away. By 7am I was pulling!

That week (?) of pulling was something so amazing. My body went into some kind of detox mode I can only assume because I lost my appetite and I could tell my body just wanted hydration. I found my body was actually using the water I was putting into it, which was an amazing feeling after so many years of chugging my way through 2-3L/day of water and herbal tea and feeling my body was just not getting the benefit. Drinking was no longer an effort but a joy and my body needed it. Everything began to taste better; I could smell better and from a longer distance. I could see clearer (my eyesight began to blur slightly about 6 months ago). I could hear clearer! I felt so alive! I felt like how I did when I was a kid, and I slept that well too. I’ve had other benefits which I’ve listed below in my ‘cure list’. I also lost a half stone which I’ve been trying to lose for over a year with no success, even from a raw food diet and extensive exercise regime. I was pulling a huge amount of oil a day (nearly a whole 750ml bottle one day!) and my whole upper respiratory tract had a clear out. For the first time since childhood I can take a deep breath and actually feel the bottom of my lungs. My lungs are about 2/3 bigger than I thought they were! So that was all amazing, and I give thanks to Allah for allowing it by His grace.

I made some observations too. Making observations is something I love about natural health because it’s something I’ve done all my life to make connections between my health symptoms and my life. Western medicine would say that those connections were irrelevant or something like that but it is what natural health is all about. So I’m really psyched to find this community. I’ve found curezone and the people here to be the most accepting and supportive people I’ve ever known. I’ve never fitted into the Venn diagrams in my life, now more so than ever. I feel very separated from the groups in my life because of having DID and from recently converting to Islam. I feel like I don’t fit into my family any more because I’m Muslim (although they accept it fully and are supportive despite finding it hard to understand the changes I’m making to my life), and I feel like I don’t fit into the Muslim community because I have DID (also, because I’m a convert and I’m white but I’m not sure why I feel like that matters. I know it matters with my boyfriend’s Asian Muslim family so maybe that’s why!) So finding curezone has been great. I feel like there are no preconditions to be a part of this group! No ‘you’re welcome here…as long as you’re like us’ which I’ve come across in my life so many times. In fact, thinking back it’s been a recurring theme! Alhamdulilah I guess that’s one of my tests but anyhow I’m grateful to be here!

Back to my observations! My main observation was to do with the skin on my hands. The background is that I got eczema on my fingers after I started working as a student nurse in a London hospital. I put it down to stress (it was so stressful!) and thought nothing of it. I tried e45 with little success. It was irritated by detergents, stress and eating acidic or citrus fruits. I had a small patch of eczema on my elbow crease as a child and just related the later recurrence to that. My boyfriend got me some DiproBase (chlorocresol(?), cetomacrogol(?) and paraffin cream) and it actually made it disappear completely. But then I started oil pulling, fasting and lemon/olive oil kidney cleanse. This time, I did not get an eczema flare up instead my whole hands down to my wrists and my fingers, especially my knuckles went dark red and very very dry. My knuckles were cracking and bleeding because they were so dry. My hands and fingers were also swollen and the skin was very rough. It was an extreme reaction! It lasted with intensity for about a week and a half and then started to get better slowly. I still have traces of swelling and cracked dry skin, but it’s mostly better. In fact my hands and fingers look healthier than they have for a long time. The colour is healthy, the skin is suppler, soft and better quality my nails look healthier and I have no sign of eczema. After many years of yoga I think I've got pretty good at sensing my body, and I know for sure it is gone for good. I think the reaction was caused mainly by the lemon/olive oil drink. This is why I thought initially that it was toxins that had been released by the blood and got stuck in my hands because of poor circulation. My circulation was so poor it scares me to think about it now! Anyway I tried to help the situation by cold showers and plenty of fluids. This helped a little but not dramatically. It was a reaction that needed to time itself out. I am wondering, in fact I am pretty sure it was a die off reaction of some kind. I’m wondering if I caught something from the hospital. I’m also wondering what else I caught since I had a bad case of bronchitis complicated with the return of my childhood asthma which I caught from a patient in a side room (the grossest part of my student nurse experience was catching something from a patient! I actually never went back to that hospital to study for reasons of stress but I’m wondering if my body was also telling me to stay away!) So my next cleanse is going to be a para cleanse needless to say!

I'm just going to put my cure list now. My ‘cure list’ is a list of health and cosmetic problems that have been cured or nearly cured since the start of my detoxing only two(?) weeks ago. I’ll include details of that later (probably when everyone else is having xmas lunch!)

Cure list
Stretch marks, red nose, blackhead acne, poor circulation, congested upper resp tract, lethargy, fatigue, migraines, headaches, chest pains, blurred vision, muddy irises, unhealthy red and bleeding gums, white coating on tongue and bad breath, foggy head, bad memory, forgetfulness, fuzzy hearing, hard skin on feet, blotchy skin, constipation, bloating, chronic recurring uti, eczema, fungal nail infections, cellulite

Improvements
Whitens and brightens teeth and whites of eyes
Clears the voice
Enables deep breathing
Enhanced smell and taste
Nail health improved
Brighter skin
Increased scar healing, scars smoothing and returning to skin colour
Weight loss
Shiny hair
Hydrated smooth skin

I’m sure I will think of more and I will add them later.

During fasting I had a disappearance of
Anxiety, depression, low self esteem, eating disorder type thoughts

I no longer use or need
Moisturiser
Exfoliating Face wash
Conditioner
Toothpaste
Specialist shampoo for frizzy hair (guess what was making it frizzy in the first place)
Foundation (my skin tone is great and looks radiant)
Concealer (even though my dark rings are still there they are less noticeable!)
Lip balm (my lips don’t need exfoliating or moisturising any more)
Blush (I look healthy enough without it, before I used to look ill!)
Mascara (my eyes are bright and enhanced by my newly grown out eyebrows, which I stopped plucking for Allah alhamdulilah and Allah really does know best in case any out there still have their doubts because I look a million times better even though my eyebrows are quite thick (lol!) my face has natural beauty now and nothing is more beautiful than that!)

And my skin, hair and mouth are HEALTHIER because of it! Getting ready in the mornings used to be a real stress and used to take ages. Now it takes hardly any time and I am happy because instead of covering up my faults I am just maintaining and freshening – a much better start to the day psychologically and otherwise!

Trying to get back round to my initial opening, everyone is still downstairs opening presents and I’m still up here trying not to let myself feel left out or sad and its working pretty good! I keep reminding myself I’m doing it for the right reasons, I’m doing it for Allah and that is more than enough to keep me going. I really don’t mind bearing it; in fact I am happy and grateful to have this chance to do something that challenges me for Allah.