My Bout with & Victory over
Depression & Fibromyalgia: 7/97 - 4/98
Since before I remember, Victor Bidwell lectured me on avoiding "the killing emotions." I reasoned this was a figure of speech more than literal use of language. Before Hygiene, I remember being impressed by documented accounts of young individuals whose vibrant, natural hair color had turned grey overnight following a horrification. After Hygiene, I remember the notables in the field giving lip-service to "emotional poise" and "equanimity" on their way to talk about food and exercise, with the admonition that emotional stress can wreck more havoc on the human body than poor diet or lack of exercise or any other physical deficiency. In The Bible, we are advised time and again not to let the sun set on our anger, to forgive, and to not look back. And although I have endured more stresses on more levels than the average female in America today (probably), only in the last 10 months have I had the direct experience of being killed by my own emotions, of being turned from youthful to old overnight, of experiencing more havoc in my body from Emotional UnBalance than from all the other 9 Energy Robbers, and of letting the sun set on my anger repeatedly. Before I realized that I was depressed, I had contracted what The Medicine Men would have termed "clinical depression with full blown fibromyalgia." How could this have happened to Victoria BidWell?
In June of last year, I was feeling good: I had traveled to Dr. Vetrano's, if you remember. And there, I was living in 90 degree weather with no air conditioning, going hiking, swimming, and horseback-riding! The symptoms began in July; but I did not identify the symptoms as anything other than good-old, classical Enervation! And so, one of the most interesting parts of my journey into depression and out is that for the first 3 months, I did not identify myself as "depressed"! I just thought I was tired! You would have been tired, too, if in the heat of July, you and another had filled 1,400 packages! When the Common Health Sense packages were done and sent, I was exhausted. I was confused when after a month of mostly bed rest I was even worse! I was aching all over. It got so that it hurt to roll over in bed! I couldn't lift my leg more than 2 inches off the ground! I was paralyzed with pain, and I had lost my enthusiasm for everything! I realized that if I didn't get any better, we could all call off The Great American Health Revolution! Finally, I got on the phone with a long consultation with an Hygienic doctor. He reminded me that I have been prone to short bouts of feeling down in the middle of mostly feeling very up all my life. And that this time, I had gone deep into depression. He explained that the aches and pains were called "fibromyalgia" by the medial community. I had become toxic and sick, from wearing an Unequal Yoke!
And so, of course, I began to study about these 2 syndromes. In Happiness Is a Choice, Doctors Minirth and Meier declare depression to be "The Nation's #1 Health Problem." I not only agree: I maintain that it is the underlying emotional mode for the development of virtually all illness. That many people go around looking sad, if not worried and dull, is obvious to us all! It is why we are Health Revolutionists! Simple depression becomes "clinical depression" when there are physiological symptoms of disorder and illness. Fibromyalgia is one set of symptoms that is characterized by an irritated/inflamed neurophysiology to the point that you feel like your nervous system is being bathed in tabasco sauce everything hurts! And it does not get better with huge amounts of rest and sleep I found that out! It only gets better with stopping the negative thinking that produces the toxic, biochemical imbalance that leads to the creation of the neurotransmitters of negativity that poison the system! ("Why didn't The Algae disease-proof me and keep this from happening?" you might ask. The Algae is a food not a cure. It can only provide so much nutritional base against full-blown killing emotions!)
