The Body Keeps Whispering

What happened when I finally stopped ignoring mine

Sometimes life is like a puzzle… and you don’t realize what you’ve been looking at until one piece suddenly makes everything else make sense.

Everything already felt foggy, I had spent 2018-2019 visiting various doctors; the ear nose and throat, my primary multiple times, optometrist, urgent care… there was no reasoning for the vertigo, dizziness, forgetfulness, lethargy, weight loss, and confusion I was experiencing. By the time I got married at the start of COVID I somehow became even foggier from there on out.

My body was quietly struggling in ways I couldn’t fully explain.

At first, I thought it was stress. Then I thought maybe it meant I shouldn’t have gotten married.

“I’d rather regret the things I’ve done than regret the things I haven’t done.”— Lucille Ball

I never once thought about mercury poisoning, even from years of eating large amounts of sushi and fish.

I kept being told I was healthy and fine, even by the doctor watching me struggle with fertility issues and confusion, plus during covid, so many parameters it felt she didn’t want to try to help so the answers were:

“You’re young.”, “This happens.”, “Try not to stress.”, “Give it some time first”

And honestly, I think one of the hardest parts of the body not cooperating is how quickly people start treating your symptoms like personality traits. It’s just: Anxiety. Sensitivity. Stress. Overthinking…

As if your body whispering for help is somehow an inconvenience to everyone else.

Years passed like that.

Meanwhile, my body kept trying to get my attention:
the headaches,
the dizziness,
the vertigo,
the mood swings,
the weight loss,
the brain fog,
the exhaustion,
the fertility struggles.

And because it was COVID, everything felt emotionally confusing already. The whole world was struggling. Everyone was carrying something heavy.

So, I minimized my own pain constantly.

I kept telling myself:
Who am I to put my problems onto other people right now?

Meanwhile, inside my home and inside my body, I felt like I was quietly fighting a war no one else could fully see.

Year after year, I experienced pregnancy loss.

Four consecutive years. It was exhausting, constantly counting months in my head, researching doulas, nannies, hospitals… living inside a future I couldn’t seem to reach.

And when you’re going through something that painful while also not understanding what’s happening inside your own body… it changes you psychologically.

It changed my marriage. It changed me emotionally. It changed how safe I felt sharing things with people.

I remember trying to express uncertainty to family members by simply saying:
“I don’t know if this is the right time to try.”

And the response was basically: “It’s always the right time.”

But I didn’t feel safe enough to fully explain what I was experiencing internally.

Partly because I didn’t even fully understand it myself yet.
Partly because some environments teach you to keep difficult emotions surface level. Partly because of the vaccine and politics going on at the time.
Partly because when you already feel emotionally fragile, judgment feels unbearable.

Until eventually, after years of trying to push through symptoms and confusion, something in me shifted. I needed to stop everything I was doing and give my mind and body a break…

At some point, I stopped wanting reassurance and started wanting real answers.

So I made an appointment with a new doctor.

A doctor who actually listened when I described what had been happening to me instead of immediately minimizing it as stress or anxiety.

She ran extensive labs.

A week later, while I was packing up our home to move, she called me and said: “You need to come in right away.”

I’ll never forget sitting across from her while she looked at my results and said: “I have never seen mercury levels this high.”

I started sweating immediately.

And then came the sentence that completely shattered me:
“Mercury at these levels will cause Immediate Birth and Neonatal Effects and Long-term Neurodevelopmental Impact. Your body needs help.”

Suddenly years of symptoms stopped feeling random.

For the first time, I realized my body wasn’t failing me.

It was trying to protect me. And over time, I began seeing those losses differently, not as punishment from my body, but as painful signals that may have ultimately protected both me and a future child. That moment changed the trajectory of my life.

I stopped eating fish immediately. Started detox protocols. Started working with doctors who looked at my body as an interconnected system instead of isolated symptoms.

Today, after over a year, my mercury levels are finally back within normal range. But healing is strange because numbers improving doesn’t automatically mean life goes back to normal overnight.

I have no desire to push my body beyond what it can currently handle. Right now, I need to continue to focus on healing, rebuilding my strength, and giving my mind and body a real chance to recover to regain the quality of whatever eggs I have left, and hopefully freeze them.

There are still days simple things don’t feel easy.
There are still lingering symptoms.
My nervous system still feels impacted.
My immune system hasn’t bounced.

And emotionally… I’m still processing how much this experience changed me and what I physically and mentally endured.

My marriage included. There are still parts of that season I carry grief around. The loneliness of it. The confusion. Carrying the emotional and physical weight of it all for so long.

“Maybe our mistakes are what make our fate.”— Carrie Bradshaw

But I also understand now that my body was never trying to betray me.
It was trying to protect me the entire time.

And maybe healing isn’t just about getting your numbers back into range.
Maybe it’s learning how to trust yourself again after spending years disconnected from what your body was trying to say.

XOXO,

C