Yep, I've got POTS

One of these days, i am going to make it through all 3 hours of church without my heart spazzing out and then passing out. Passing out in public is rather embarrassing. Though I have perfected knowing when it's coming and making it look like I simply fell asleep sitting down. What really happens most times though, is a sudden bout of nausea followed by my heart beating far too fast, losing feeling in my left arm, and then extreme dizziness and getting short of breath with a possibility of ending in a complete faint. It is generally caused by my body deciding to react to some food I ate. Today, it was butter. My body said "oh I am stressed, lets see what she ate today... ohh lets make butter make her sick now! All that lovely fat! Now to be eliminated from her diet!" Yeah, pretty sure my body has it out for me sometimes. I will be forced into a healthy diet. I will dearly miss butter. But it is looking hopeful that at some point in time, through healing my body, I will be able to return to a fairly normal diet. I plan on being gluten free and mostly healthy my whole life, but someday I would like to be able to eat peanut butter again. and Almonds. Some things that I adore but have been necessary to erradicate from my diet.

I'm a mess today. I want to eat a whole package of bacon (the only comfort food I can eat today) and watch chick flicks, and pout. I want to, but I won't. What I will do is make myself a fruit salad, put on an Audrey Hepburn movie, give myself a pedicure and think myself out of depression. I will not let my illness take over. Even though it would be so much easier sometimes. Depression is a hard thing to deal with. The irrational thoughts. Feeling overwhelmed and out of control. At least I have finally accepted that it is part of my life, and found ways to fight it. It used to be that I NEEDED a guy to tell me I'm pretty and hold me till I felt better. I needed to feel like someone cared and loved me. And they needed to be physically there. Now I can stare at myself in a mirror and tell myself that I do not need a guy to make me feel beautiful. I am stronger than that. This is a daily process. Some days I lose. Most days, I win. The thoughts of "I'm ugly" "I'm not a good person" "How could anyone love me?" are starting to discippate. I am able to change my thought processes now. Now there is one thought "God loves me. I am strong enough." I have to say this to myself all the time, but it keeps me going. It keeps me believing that I will Beat this. I can do what I need  to do.

There have been so many people put into my life to help me get through this, my family especially. I was lucky to even find out from a friends comment what the illness I have is. So many people have POTs and the doctors just tell them that it must be in their head because all testing comes up completely clean. But I have the opportunity in a couple weeks to go to a specialist who studies this. I can get help and be fine. Most people just suffer for years, like my mom did, without any answers. 2 years of the wrong answers was enough to push me over the edge, my mom had 30. I'm just grateful I was given help.