Stress can kill you. All the ways our body sends signals.

As we sit in the space of transitions, how do we grieve for the person we once were while accepting the person we are now?

It first began nearly five years ago when I woke up one morning and couldn’t move the right side of my face. Maybe you can imagine what that feels like, but I bet you didn’t consider what happens when your eye can no longer blink on its own when one side temporarily becomes paralyzed.

For two months, I manually opened and closed my eye every five seconds with a slight sweep of my right finger, like a tic, to mimic blinking. To sleep, I taped my eye shut every night. I slurred my words and had crushing headaches. I plugged my ears to protect them against the heightened sensitivity to sounds. It was the most bizarre and unpleasant sensation. The clank of a metal spoon scraping against the bottom of a stainless steel pot would ring out from across the room like a jolt to the eardrum.

I was shocked to learn that stress might play a role in the onset of Bell’s Palsy. I didn’t know that the body could revolt to that extreme, sending signal flairs of warnings. Fuming and angry, the body punishes if you don’t listen—and I definitely did not listen. I continued to work because this was a pandemic and I could hide my temporarily disfigured face behind a computer screen.

But I was aware that stress could kill. I watched my mother reach dangerously fatal blood pressure readings while she was caring for my dad at the end stage of Alzheimers during that first pandemic year. I thought I would lose her first. I just didn’t think that stress would be coming for me that viciously too.

Stress was never something I couldn’t conquer. Resiliency is a word that I’ve since come to resent because once you prove you can bounce back again and again, it becomes less of a possibility and more of an obligation.

I was thinking about this the other day because I’ve had an interesting few weeks coming to terms with a chronic illness. Denial and hope might sit on opposite sides of the same coin, but they’re co-conspirators in the quiet corners of unwanted truths. I now have more bad days than good. Sometimes I get anxious about leaving the house. I apologize for being vague, and trust when I say that I hate vague posting myself, but bear with me as I’m trying to process it still. To finally call it what it is, however—a chronic illness, is to finally acknowledge it by name so I can have a plan forward.

In America, rather than wonder what kind of care we can get, our first line of thinking is: how much will this cost? I learn from my occupational therapist that for insurance purposes, afflictions that are experienced by men—meaning not exclusively women’s issues—are coded first to help ensure that a claim gets approved. My OT rolls her eyes when she tells me this. I let out a little laugh, but I’m not surprised considering how our bodies are politicized. Even now, it remains understudied in medicine. And therein lies the problem.

CT scans, especially after a certain age, is like leaving your car with the mechanic for one issue, only to be told after inspection that they’ve found four other things wrong with you. The next thing you know, you’re bouncing between one specialist to the next.

And after all the procedures, appointments, and thousands of dollars spent, I still don’t have any answers. There is no cure, I’ve learned, and no known cause. I can only manage the symptoms and work towards longer periods of remission.

You begin to really understand how your body is a map of your entire life history when you start piecing together what you learn from each diagnosis. How childhood scoliosis affects certain neurological functions and the bulging discs from carrying two babies. The way some muscles in my pelvis are weaker because both fetuses preferred the left side of my uterus. The nerves on the right side of my face that never quite fully rewired to normal.

Each scar, each disorder, tells a story of how we as humans can endure so much. Our bodies are remarkable vessels, wired with the instinct to survive and the stubborn will to live.

But who knows our bodies better than ourselves? Don’t let them gaslight you when you’re trying to advocate for yourself. After a little meltdown during the most recent flair, I set to work researching everything I could.

I’ve learned so much about how my body works and what it needs. I never imagined that stress would be the main reason I’ll likely never work full-time again. It doesn’t seem serious enough to justify a decision that big. Everyone gets stressed, right? But I’ve learned that stress isn’t just a mental strain; it can physically take you down. It is far more damaging than I ever understood.

I then realized that this “sabbatical” that began with this newsletter as a way to ease the anxiety of sudden unemployment a little over two years ago was really the slow unraveling of everything I once thought defined me: a highly productive workaholic and a master juggler of all things. I was really proud of that version of myself. Mother, designer, business owner, breadwinner. A superhero problem solver who could move mountains on little sleep.

I still see traces of that person, but sometimes I feel like I’m losing her. I’m not as independent as I’d like to be. I still grapple with comparing myself to others. On good days I’m content with what I’ve accomplished; on others, I feel like a failure for not achieving enough.

I’m hoping for more good days than bad, but who even am I now? There’s room to grieve the person you once were, as long as you can love the person you are now.

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7 things that are not stressful (usually)

Watching the light change in nature. Grateful to have Prospect park so nearby.

A little beauty and indulgence in the home.

An emotional support animal. Nori was a rescue cat who arrived the day after I was diagnosed with Bell’s Palsy.

Gardening, indoors and out—even in the city.

Going to see art, alone and with a friend.

Engaging your mind in anything creative.

Getting outside for a walk.

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Related reading

Don't ignore the signal flairs

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Weekly links

To read:

• How plants are able to remember stress without a brain (The Conversation)
  We know that plants experience stress—and it can kill them. But it’s fascinating to learn that they have the capability to store information in their cells like a memory bank.

• What’s the Difference Between Stress and Burnout? (Self)
  We use these two terms all the time, but is there a difference? Apparently. But does it matter when both can make you feel like crap?

• How Stress Gets Passed From One Generation to the Next (Psychology Today)
  Oh great, another thing to feel guilty about as a parent.

• In the Age of A.I., What Makes People Unique? More than ever, we’re challenged to define what’s valuable about being human. (The New Yorker)
  This is so dystopian. And in the age of A.I. companions—and in some cases, A.I replacing therapists and tutors—we’re just going to keep asking ourselves this question over and over.

• New York City Tree Map (NYC Parks)
  This is amazing. If you live in NYC, this interactive map shows you, block-by-block, all the trees that have been mapped. So if you’ve ever wondered what that tree in front of your window was (I certainly have, and now I have the answer!), you can find out.

• In Your Face: The Brutal Aesthetics of MAGA - Does proximity to power rely on a specific look? (Mother Jones)
  I cannot take Kristi Noem’s photo ops of herself during ICE raids or in front of the confinement centers in El Salvador (Vanity Fair). It’s beyond political theater; it’s just gross.

To make and eat:

• Grilled fish with caper and red onion dressing (Dish)

A little indulgence:

• Abib collagen eye patch
  I don’t use eye patches much at all, but I spotted a two pack of these collagen ones at Costco and now I’m sold (I love that they sell some K-beauty items). They’re on sale right now directly from Abib.