The Best And Worst Thing That Happened For Me

How toxic mold almost killed me and gave me back my life.

It was January 2021, a new year and one that I was so excited about. Putting 2020 behind us. The entire world needed what felt like a fresh start. The closing of not only a terribly challenging chapter, but the end of the whole terribly challenging book. Or so I hoped.

I started the new year off alone. I wanted it that way. My boyfriend, let’s call him D, was away at work and I was invited elsewhere, but I had things I wanted to do and I wasn’t feeling well. So I stayed home. I stayed home in our new home that we just closed on 15 days prior. After sleeping on a futon at my parents for 6 months while we house hunted, I was feeling so content as I begun to make the house our home. My plan was to do a ton of journaling on everything that happened in 2020, release it, and set intentions for the new year ahead. And then I was going to go to bed early to get that full 8 hours of sleep that I felt my body needed from the symptoms that it was displaying. Digestive issues. Did I have a parasite? Headaches. Those were new. And more anxiety than usual. Not uncommon, but slightly different.

I did all of the things. I felt good going into the new year. Intentions were set and the space was cleared for 2021.

Fast forward just a few short weeks later I was in the emergency room in the middle of the night gasping for air, shaking, and unable to think straight. Blood pressure - 150/125 for 3 days prior. Resting heart rate - 124. “The mold has literally taken over me and I am dying,” I thought as they forced me into a COVID isolation room and pressured me into being tested for an illness that I knew I didn’t have.

I told them my situation.

“I moved into a home in December. There was mold on the wall behind the refrigerator. We cleaned it with bleach. I didn’t know it at the time but you’re not supposed to clean mold with bleach. It releases mycotoxins and they’ve made me sick. In the month that I lived there I had digestive issues, headaches, extreme anxiety, brain fog that makes me feel like I’m swimming deep under water, insomnia where I only sleep 1-2 hours per night, shortness of breath where I have to run outside to try and catch my breath, and my blood pressure and pulse that have brought me here. I haven’t been in the house for a few days, I’m back at my parents now but I know that is what’s affecting me. I was totally fine until I moved into that house.”

And with great skepticism they did what they do. They did tons of blood work, an EKG, and even a x-ray to check for mold in my lungs. Everything came back “normal” so they gave me an Ativan and told me that I was just anxious. I was anxious all right! But there was a reason for it. Anxiety is a symptom, not a diagnosis. I didn’t take the pill and I left feeling alone, hopeless, and scared for what was happening to me.

At this point no one believed me. I’ve always been “extreme” when it comes to health. Vegan. Gluten free before it was cool. Into yoga and meditation. Running a ton or always hitting the gym. So they just thought that this was another extreme thing I was doing and that I was paranoid and/or a hypochondriac.

Meanwhile, I was in pure desperation mode. Miserable to the highest degree.

I made it my life mission to figure out what was happening to me and how to fix it. I found a practitioner to work with that came highly recommended by a friend. She put me on a million supplements and herxed me out of my mind, literally. I sought out someone with a more balanced approach. At this point it was April. I was experiencing most of the same symptoms still and was hoping with everything I had that she would be able to help me. And thankfully, she did. By the end of April I was able to catch my breath for the first time since January. Three months of not being able to breath!! I wasn’t “cured” at this point or anything, but I saw a bit of light and I grasped onto it with all that I had, trusting that there was even more light ahead.

Over that 3 month period D still was not believing that I was sick due to mold. Most people weren’t, honestly. And that fact alone infuriates me. Not for myself because I know that I can stand strong and secure in my experiences, but for those who have a harder time doing so and are more easily influenced to override their intuition for the sake of others.

Anyways, I was sleeping on a futon at my parents with hardly any of my belongings. I took Lily, Molly, my computer, and some clothes. Everything else was abandoned in the mold home, where D was still living. This was a major point of contention in our relationship and I harbored a lot of anger and confusion towards him for not believing me.

Prior to me leaving we tested the home and we agreed to do so again one more time in April. I wanted (knew we needed) to get professional help and he didn’t want to. He said that he was doing stuff to help the situation on his own. I didn’t believe it was possible for the circumstance that we had but I entertained it because I didn’t know what else to do. We retested and found the levels to be worse. The day the test results came back we ended up having a huge fight and I knew it was over.

Actually, I knew it way before that but when you’re with someone fo 6 years it takes something big to break that up. At least it does for me.

Not believing that I was extremely sick due to the home we were living in when I was completely fine prior to moving in was something big enough for me to wake up to what needed to happen.

And so we broke up.

Meanwhile, all of my belongings were still in the home and I knew enough at this point to know that I have to get rid of a lot of them due to the mycotoxins and the materials of the items. Another circumstance where everyone thought I was extreme. I suited up, many times, and literally cleaned up my entire life.

What an experience.

It’s something that you can only understand if you go through it. People can empathize, but until you’re in a full Tyvek suit and N95 mask throwing away and packing up your entire life then you can’t fully grasp the magnitude of feelings in a situation like that.

And so I walked away from that experience not quite with it behind me. I was essentially homeless now, living at my parents with the belongings that I did keep packed away in the garage. I got an old mattress from my sister (you shouldn’t bring mattresses from moldy places due to cross contamination) and brought a bit more normalcy into my new life - as much as I could for the circumstance. And I worked on my health, my main priority at this time.

Without health we have nothing.

Now that I’m more than a year away from all of that happening I can confidently say that it was the best and worst thing that happened for me. Because of it I went on a crazy healing journey that is still in progress, met my husbsand, and began to view the world in a completely different light.

It’s so hard to have that gratitude imbedded in your perspective when you’re in the middle of truly tough and trying times but it’s not what happens to us, it’s how we handle it and what we learn from it. I’m a firm believer in things happening for us - no victim mentality here. Each experience has something to teach us and something for us to take away from it that will further our evolution, serving us in the highest way.

Regardless of if it’s mold that you’re dealing with or something else. I get it. I have been in that darkness too. I know that oftentimes there doesn’t seem as if there’s a way out and where to turn next isn’t clear. But the answers are there and so is the path. The path might be covered in leaves but it’s there. Leaf by leaf you can uncover the way. Small movements like that don’t seem like enough in the day to day but tiny steps create big things and when it comes to true healing tiny steps are the path - they are the way there.