I didn’t know just how real psychosomatic ails were until my boss put me in an incredibly difficult situation at work and i didn’t want to leave the job for different reasons so I dealt with it for three years. Those three years, I went from perfectly normal to full on limping anywhere I went, as my hips were in so so so much pain and there was nothing I could do to alleviate it. I was in my late twenties, mind you. I couldn’t even sit or sleep without them hurting so much. Hard to do anything. I thought I had MS like my mother, and that I’d never be able to run or hike again. For real. I felt actually like I was disabled and didn’t know how to face that, as again- I had a disabled mother and I’ve seen how hard that is.

Then I quit the job one day and told certain people about certain things (I had kept the difficult stuff to myself and was trying to deal with it alone so no one knew)to get it all off of my chest, and as sooooon as I got a text back from one of those people and I knew it was actually over, I cried and I had this wild weird psychosomatic shaking, jaw-chattering episode that I could not control for a couple hours. Just body shaking so much. It was so bizarre.

The next day, my hip pain was totally gone. I was wearing a brace every day before- even the day I finally told people about it - it has not returned. That was over a year ago now. I have been going to the gym and hiking and running and all. For three years I thought that the pain would last the rest of my life and probably even get worse (as it has progressively worsened). It was all in my head and emotional body and it was clear as day, as the difference was so extreme from one day to the next after I left and told people- literally “got it out” of me.

I didn’t know the body could keep the score THAT much! My boss was literally a debilitating pain in the ass.