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Before coming to this program, my life was extremely limited and isolated. I started to have health problems as a child. So by the time I graduated from high school, I barely graduated and I was too ill to go to college. So since the age of 18, I have been in my parents’ home. I realized doing this program that the fatigue was my most dominant condition to recover from. I think the best way I can explain it is that my fatigue was so intense that I would have to choose between showering and brushing my teeth, though that’s what my days were like. Mm-hmm . And if I paid attention to how my body felt, I would be lying down and not moving at all times. I did not go out much. I mainly left my parents’ home for doctor’s appointments and then I developed chemical sensitivities.
And so that made my life even more restricted because I would get sicker if I went out. Plus, I couldn’t have anyone over to the house, friends or family. So family couldn’t visit and I couldn’t have friends to visit. So I became extremely socially isolated. And then the sun sensitivity restricted me even further because it was difficult to be out of the house, even in the yard. And so I couldn’t drive. And then the food sensitivity started and they got more and more intense. So I lost food after food, after food, after food. And I think I was down to less than 10 foods. And when I say less than 10 foods, that doesn’t mean apples. It means one type of apple and everything had to be prepared in one way for me to tolerate it. And it got to a point that I was afraid I wouldn’t have anything to eat.
So that was scary. I would react to anything with an odor, and that included any chemical. So anything we would think of as a healthy person that has an odor, so remodeling your home or exhaust or nail polish or anything that would make sense that has a strong odor. But for me, it was also all cooking smells. So my family members, my parents stomped being able to cook most foods in our home because just the smells of food cooking would make me sick and couldn’t use any spices, you know, things like that. All meat and seafood had to be cooked outside on the barbecue, even in winter because I could not tolerate it. My reactions were sort of, I think how healthy people fail if they got sprayed with a skunk, you know, where you’re just like, I have to get away from the smell.
It’s horrible. And it was everything. And I also had skin reactions, especially the skin on my face and the skin on my hands and my eyes would react and my lips would react and my tongue would react and I could taste all the odors. My regular general practitioner family doctor recommended we look into alternative medicine when I was 16 because she didn’t know what to do. So I went to naturopaths and holistic MDs and integrative MDs and functional medicine, MDs and acupuncturists and Chinese medicine doctors and homeopathist and all types of body work, chiropractors and osteopaths and rolfing. And many doctors referred me to psychologists and therapists and things like that. And all of these different practitioners had me try many, many, many things. I have no idea how many different supplements that I’ve taken. It must be hundreds and hundreds and hundreds.
And I would do whatever they said, you know, I wanna get better. I’m determined I will do what they say. And none of it helped. My parents have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars. I know that it is 16 years and it is tens of thousands a year. I had started reacting to medications and that had been getting worse over the last two or three years. And I had had some reactions where my throat swells, which was very scary. And then I had a reaction to Benadryl where my throat swelled so I couldn’t take Benadryl, like if something scary happened. So that made it scarier, and I couldn’t do any of the treatments that he had in mind because I reacted to everything. And so he said, you know, you’re stuck in a corner where you can’t get to do any of the treatments. And then I started reacting to a medication that I’ve taken for 16 years and never had any problem with.
And it was one that I could not stop taking, so I just had to like endure the reaction. And about that same time, I think about a month after that started happening, he sent me that email. He said, you know, doctor Schrader said it to like, go to an Annie I think you said Hooper’s class. And so I Googled it and then I was like, oh, Annie Hopper. And I went to the website and I read her story and I was like, oh. She was like me and she recovered and I had never heard of anyone else recovered. And not only did she recover, she fully recovered. And I was like, does it, I have to go crying. My mom’s crying. I was just like, I had hope. So I found out about DNRS at the very end of June, and I came to the seminar this week in Austin in November.
So I ordered the DVDs to start using in the time in between. And so I started the DVDs on September 11th, and I actually only got through day one of the DVDs. Um, you know, with all I needed to do to get, to be able to travel here, which was a big deal. I did my best. And I got through day one and just doing day one of the DVDs. I saw very noticeable improvements and I knew this was working for me. I was adding new foods back or I was, and my energy started increasing, which really made a huge difference. Getting ready to take a trip and go on an airplane for the first time in eight years. And I went the whole travel day and I wasn’t fatigued. I was, I had energy at the end of a long travel day. It’s a miracle.
It’s wonderful. And, so we arrived in Austin and we went to the hotel room and I could smell things, but I was fine. I didn’t react, I didn’t get sick. And I came to the class and the DVDs are wonderful and the class is even more wonderful. And I knew it was gonna be amazing, and it’s so much more amazing than I even thought it was gonna be. And I thought it was gonna be the best thing I had ever done in my life. And it is the best thing I ever did in my life, except way more than I could even imagine. Annie and Candy are the best, like just a flat out period bar on. They’re so loving and understanding and compassionate and encouraging, and they hold that space that you will recover, and I know you will recover because I have seen it. And seeing with your eyes, hearing with your ears, you know, feeling the sensation of being in the room with two people who have 100% recovered from whatever variety of limbic system conditions they had,
It teaches your brain that it’s possible people in the class are talking about how they felt like they were coming back to themselves and who they are. And I realized I’m getting to find out who I am as an adult for the first time. And it’s beautiful. So going forward now, I’m looking forward to amazingly long list of wonderful things. And I’m looking forward to the process of recovering and all the exciting steps and new experiences and looking towards the future. I get to go to college. I get to go to college. I have been waiting for this moment since I was 18 years old. I get to move outta my parents’ house. I get to date for the first time in my life. I get to drive a car again. I get to make friends, I get to go on walks out in the sunshine by the ocean.
I get to, this might sound funny, but I get to take care of myself and be self-sufficient, do all my own shopping, do all my own, you know, housekeeping, all my own cooking. I get to like, entertain, have people over to my house. I mean, I get to have all the wonderful things of a normal healthy life, and I’ll get to get married and I could have kids, which is wonderful because you have to be able to take care of yourself, to be able to take care of, you know, a child. And so that’s a possibility. And oh, I can travel, I can visit family. I haven’t seen my grandma in 13 years. Oh. It’s just, it’s the best gift I have ever received and it is a healing on every level of my being.
