Latest / Why You Got Sick: How Emotion Drives Chronic Illness & Healing in Women / #53. The Years You Spent Fighting For Your Chronic Illness Diagnosis Are Causing Conflict & Blocking Healing
Transcript
- 0:00[SPEAKER_00]: Some of you can recite every lab result and remember every appointment where the doctor told you everything came back relatively within range.
- 0:09[SPEAKER_00]: You keep it all top of mind so you're never overlooked again.
- 0:13[SPEAKER_00]: But holding on to all of it may be costing you more than it's protecting you.
- 0:18[SPEAKER_00]: This is why you got sick.
- 0:20[SPEAKER_00]: I'm Teclody Francesco, certified mind-body practitioner, and certified holistic life coach.
- 0:26[SPEAKER_00]: This podcast is for women living with chronic illness, autoimmune disease, IBS, chronic fatigue, PCOS, andometriosis, migraines, fibromyalgia, or persistent symptoms that no one can fully explain.
- 0:40[SPEAKER_00]: Twice a week we look at how emotion drives chronic illness in women.
- 0:45[SPEAKER_00]: One episode goes deeper into the pattern beneath the symptoms.
- 0:48[SPEAKER_00]: The other gives you a quick way to interrupt the cycle.
- 0:52[SPEAKER_00]: If you're done organizing your life around symptoms and flare-ups, this is where that changes.
- 0:58[SPEAKER_00]: This podcast shows mind-body education.
- 1:00[SPEAKER_00]: It is not medical advice and is designed to compliment not replace your medical care.
- 1:05[SPEAKER_00]: Let's begin.
- 1:08[SPEAKER_00]: In this episode, you'll discover why the years you spent being the only one who believes you can end up working against you.
- 1:16[SPEAKER_00]: You'll learn the hidden reason letting go of your diagnosis can feel like losing something you fought hard for.
- 1:22[SPEAKER_00]: And you'll learn why being proven right about your body came in a cost nobody warned you about.
- 1:28[SPEAKER_00]: Before I go any further, I need to be clear about who this episode is for, because this one is not going to apply to every woman listening, and I don't want you to force it if it's not meant for you.
- 1:39[SPEAKER_00]: This is for the woman who knew something was wrong in her body long before anyone confirmed it.
- 1:44[SPEAKER_00]: You felt it.
- 1:46[SPEAKER_00]: Something was often you couldn't quite explain it, but you knew it was real, and you went looking for answers.
- 1:52[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe you saw one doctor, maybe you saw ten, and at some point someone ran the standard tests, looked at the results, and told you everything came back relatively normal or within range.
- 2:03[SPEAKER_00]: I want to be fair to that moment, because the system isn't the villain here.
- 2:08[SPEAKER_00]: mainstream medicine is built for acute care, and it's very good at finding the obvious, the urgent, the thing the standard panel is designed to catch.
- 2:19[SPEAKER_00]: But when your labs come back in-range and nothing clear shows up, that model has mostly done its job.
- 2:25[SPEAKER_00]: And unless someone refers you onto a specialist, that is often where the road ends, with no answer and no next step, and nobody caring it forward except you.
- 2:35[SPEAKER_00]: That can feel deeply invalidating, even when no one meant it that way, because you are left holding a real physical problem and a system that has run out of places to look.
- 2:46[SPEAKER_00]: So you took charge, you refused to accept that nothing was there when you could feel that something was wrong.
- 2:52[SPEAKER_00]: You went and found someone else.
- 2:54[SPEAKER_00]: You pushed out into functional medicine, holistic care, naturopathic support, whatever it took to keep searching.
- 3:01[SPEAKER_00]: And eventually, you were right.
- 3:04[SPEAKER_00]: There was something there, and you knew it the whole time.
- 3:07[SPEAKER_00]: Now here's where the
- 3:13[SPEAKER_00]: It cost you years, money, energy, and a version of your life you'll never get back.
- 3:19[SPEAKER_00]: And you were the only one who kept taking your body seriously the entire way through.
- 3:24[SPEAKER_00]: So being right stopped being just relief.
- 3:28[SPEAKER_00]: It became something you fought hard to earn.
- 3:31[SPEAKER_00]: And part of you now holds onto the evidence of exactly how sick you are.
- 3:36[SPEAKER_00]: The timeline, the proof, not to torture yourself with it, to protect the thing you had to fight so hard to establish that you were right.
- 3:45[SPEAKER_00]: Because in some level getting well, now feels like it would take that away from you, whether you're consciously aware of it or not.
- 3:53[SPEAKER_00]: Like being fine would shrink how hard those years actually were.
- 3:57[SPEAKER_00]: Like it would hand a point back to everyone who couldn't find anything.
- 4:01[SPEAKER_00]: So you stay invested in being right.
- 4:04[SPEAKER_00]: And that investment sits directly opposite from the health and progress you say you want.
- 4:09[SPEAKER_00]: That is the pattern.
- 4:11[SPEAKER_00]: The part of you that would rather stay proven right, then let the evidence go.
- 4:15[SPEAKER_00]: I work with a woman who fought long and hard for her diagnosis.
- 4:20[SPEAKER_00]: Years of knowing something was wrong and being told nothing was showing up.
- 4:24[SPEAKER_00]: Of refusing to stop until someone finally looked closely enough to find the root of it.
- 4:29[SPEAKER_00]: And she did, she got there, she was right the whole time.
- 4:32[SPEAKER_00]: But now she's struggling with something she never saw coming.
- 4:35[SPEAKER_00]: She cannot detach from that diagnosis.
- 4:38[SPEAKER_00]: Her identity has become fused to it.
- 4:41[SPEAKER_00]: She worked so hard to prove she was right, and she was, and now letting any of it go feels impossible.
- 4:48[SPEAKER_00]: because think about what that diagnosis actually represents to her.
- 4:51[SPEAKER_00]: For years, everything was elusive, uncertain, scary, unknown.
- 4:57[SPEAKER_00]: She had a body that was clearly unwell and no concrete explanation for any of it.
- 5:02[SPEAKER_00]: And then she finally had something solid, something real, a name for what was happening to her.
- 5:08[SPEAKER_00]: So of course, she holds it close.
- 5:11[SPEAKER_00]: When you've spent that long in the unknown, the last thing you want is for it to all become elusive again.
- 5:17[SPEAKER_00]: That diagnosis is the one concrete thing she fought her way to.
- 5:21[SPEAKER_00]: Holding on to what feels like holding on to proof that she was never crazy or dramatic or wrong.
- 5:26[SPEAKER_00]: And there is a part of her that feels like she's sticking it to every doctor who couldn't find it.
- 5:31[SPEAKER_00]: Every person who told her it was probably nothing.
- 5:34[SPEAKER_00]: But here's the honest thing I had to bring her back to.
- 5:37[SPEAKER_00]: Those doctors are not thinking about you.
- 5:40[SPEAKER_00]: They ran the standard panel, nothing showed up and they either referred you out or sent you on your way.
- 5:46[SPEAKER_00]: That was the end of their road for you.
- 5:48[SPEAKER_00]: They were doing exactly what they were trained to do.
- 5:56[SPEAKER_00]: and you are one of a million.
- 5:58[SPEAKER_00]: This happens all the time.
- 6:00[SPEAKER_00]: And it is only ever a decision that you can make.
- 6:03[SPEAKER_00]: Is it more important to start releasing being right so your body can heal?
- 6:08[SPEAKER_00]: Or to hold your ground and keep that diagnosis pressed to your chest because you thought so hard to finally be validated?
- 6:16[SPEAKER_00]: I understand this one personally because I lived a version of it myself.
- 6:19[SPEAKER_00]: After I had started reversing my two chronic diagnoses, I was exposed to toxic black mold.
- 6:25[SPEAKER_00]: My body made it obvious.
- 6:27[SPEAKER_00]: I had a rash all over my body.
- 6:29[SPEAKER_00]: My skin was breaking out.
- 6:30[SPEAKER_00]: My hair was falling out in clumps.
- 6:32[SPEAKER_00]: I had hives everywhere.
- 6:34[SPEAKER_00]: My whole system was in clear distress.
- 6:37[SPEAKER_00]: I ended up leaving my vacation coming back to my GP here in Australia and she ran a panel to look at my bloods and look for mold.
- 6:46[SPEAKER_00]: It came back with nothing.
- 6:48[SPEAKER_00]: But she said something important.
- 6:50[SPEAKER_00]: She told me the only test for the common types of mold found in Australia.
- 6:53[SPEAKER_00]: And I'd been in Europe.
- 6:55[SPEAKER_00]: It was obvious the strains might be completely different.
- 6:59[SPEAKER_00]: So she told me this was all she could do.
- 7:01[SPEAKER_00]: That the body had clearly been through significant stress, and that I should just wait it out for three or so months and take anti-hist means.
- 7:08[SPEAKER_00]: I knew that wasn't the answer.
- 7:10[SPEAKER_00]: So I did what I already knew how to do, because I had already been through this twice before.
- 7:15[SPEAKER_00]: I went back to my functional doctor, she helped me with a detox protocol, and that's where I learned the exposure had triggered an entirely new condition, must sell activation syndrome.
- 7:26[SPEAKER_00]: And here is the part I want you to hear.
- 7:29[SPEAKER_00]: For a long time there was a big part of me that held on to being right.
- 7:32[SPEAKER_00]: I knew there was more, I figured it out.
- 7:35[SPEAKER_00]: I was the one who pursued it.
- 7:37[SPEAKER_00]: I knew it was the mold, and I proved it.
- 7:40[SPEAKER_00]: And letting go of that was genuinely hard because I earned it.
- 7:43[SPEAKER_00]: but I knew that if I didn't like go, nothing would improve.
- 7:48[SPEAKER_00]: So why does this actually cost your body something?
- 7:50[SPEAKER_00]: Why would holding on to being right have a physical price?
- 7:54[SPEAKER_00]: Because of what happens inside you when you're carrying two opposing desires at the same time.
- 7:59[SPEAKER_00]: One part of you wants to be well, and that part is very real.
- 8:03[SPEAKER_00]: You want your energy back, your life back, your body back.
- 8:06[SPEAKER_00]: But another part of you needs to stay right.
- 8:09[SPEAKER_00]: Needs the evidence, needs the proof of how sick you were because that proof is what you thought years to earn.
- 8:16[SPEAKER_00]: Those two things cannot both win.
- 8:19[SPEAKER_00]: Healing would be letting go of the evidence, and letting go of the evidence feels like giving up the one thing that finally validated you.
- 8:26[SPEAKER_00]: So you're living with a genuine internal contradiction.
- 8:29[SPEAKER_00]: I want to be well and I need to stay right.
- 8:33[SPEAKER_00]: Two commitments pulling in opposite directions running at the same time.
- 8:37[SPEAKER_00]: And your body feels that.
- 8:39[SPEAKER_00]: When part of you is reaching for healing, and part of you is pulling away from it, your system never gets a clean signal that it's safe to let go and repair.
- 8:48[SPEAKER_00]: It gets a mixed message, move forward, no, hold your ground, get well, no, stay right.
- 8:54[SPEAKER_00]: A body receiving that kind of contradiction cannot get into a rest and repair state because there's inner conflict.
- 9:01[SPEAKER_00]: Settling would mean resolving the tension in favor of healing, a part of you is not willing to do that yet.
- 9:07[SPEAKER_00]: This is the why this is why we care about this.
- 9:10[SPEAKER_00]: Because as long as being right and being well are pulling against each other inside you, your body is caught in the middle of a fight it cannot finish, and it cannot drop into repair while that fight is still happening.
- 9:22[SPEAKER_00]: The shift here is a reframe.
- 9:24[SPEAKER_00]: It's not about the evidence itself, it's about the meaning you've attached to it.
- 9:28[SPEAKER_00]: Right now, all that proof, the results, the timeline, the diagnosis you finally got, has won a role.
- 9:35[SPEAKER_00]: It's evidence of how sick you are.
- 9:37[SPEAKER_00]: It sits there reminding you every time you look at it, how bad things got and how right you were about it.
- 9:43[SPEAKER_00]: We're going to change what it's for.
- 9:45[SPEAKER_00]: The next time you catch yourself reaching for that proof and holding it close and feeling that pull to keep it front and center.
- 9:52[SPEAKER_00]: Pause.
- 9:53[SPEAKER_00]: You need to hand your brain a different story.
- 9:56[SPEAKER_00]: This is not evidence of how sick I am.
- 9:58[SPEAKER_00]: This is evidence of how far I've already come.
- 10:02[SPEAKER_00]: same facts completely different job.
- 10:05[SPEAKER_00]: Because look at what that evidence actually shows.
- 10:08[SPEAKER_00]: It shows that you knew your body when no one else could see it.
- 10:11[SPEAKER_00]: That you refused to stop.
- 10:13[SPEAKER_00]: That you found the answer that was missing.
- 10:15[SPEAKER_00]: That is not proof you belong in a state of illness.
- 10:18[SPEAKER_00]: That is proof of what you're capable of.
- 10:21[SPEAKER_00]: So you keep everything you learned, you keep knowing you were right, but you stop using it as the reason you have to stay sick and start letting it be the reason you know you can get better.
- 10:31[SPEAKER_00]: The first few times, the old narrative will try and reinsert itself here, and that's okay.
- 10:37[SPEAKER_00]: Catch it and reassign it again.
- 10:40[SPEAKER_00]: Give it the new story.
- 10:42[SPEAKER_00]: Every time you do that, you weaken the tie between the proof and the illness, and that is the tie keeping your body in the fight.
- 10:49[SPEAKER_00]: Here's what it comes down to.
- 10:51[SPEAKER_00]: The reframe helps you in the moment, but the reason being right got views to who you are in the first place is bigger than any single moment.
- 10:59[SPEAKER_00]: It lives at the level of your identity.
- 11:02[SPEAKER_00]: And the longer a diagnosis sits at the center of who you believe you are, the harder it becomes for your body to respond to anything other than that story.
- 11:11[SPEAKER_00]: This is exactly what becoming the version of you who heals addresses.
- 11:15[SPEAKER_00]: It's a seven-day audio series that starts separating who you are from what you've been diagnosed with one day at a time.
- 11:22[SPEAKER_00]: The longer you wait to start, the more ingrained that identity becomes.
- 11:26[SPEAKER_00]: Your thoughts become your reality.
- 11:28[SPEAKER_00]: That is why this is so important.
- 11:31[SPEAKER_00]: The link is in the show notes for you.
- 11:33[SPEAKER_00]: Go and read about the amazing transformations women have had in just seven days.
- 11:38[SPEAKER_00]: I'll see you in the next episode.