On Being an Empath and a Highly Sensitive Person

I have always known I am sensitive.  Sensitive to everything.  My feelings are hurt easily, my skin is sensitive, I am sensitive to cold and heat.  I can feel the days of the week. I avoid crowds.  I am sensitive to smells, especially bathroom smells.  You get it, I'm sensitive.  I am also an Empath.  I only just learned what this is recently.  An Empath can feel the emotions of other people.  Until recently, I never really thought about this, it just was.  Mostly it is just with people I am close to, like my family.  I didn't realize until recently that not everyone else feels these things.  I used to get seriously upset with my husband because he couldn't feel that I was mad or sad, or whatever.  I would always think geez, I know how YOU are feeling pretty much all the time!  Sometimes I get the emotions wrong, but I know when somethings is wrong, especially with my kids.  And yes, I know we are all intuitive to an extent, but with me, it is like getting hit in the face.  Or hit by a truck.  I hate it.  So when something very traumatic happens, it affects me very deeply and it can take days or weeks for me to recover, depending on the situation.  So I decided to get some help for this.  To help me learn how to not get wrecked from other people's stuff.  

This past Friday I had an appointment with a therapist about my sensitivity/empathness, to try to learn how to somehow protect myself.  I was a little nervous and didn't really know what to expect.  Well let me just say that the appointment turned out to be NOTHING like I thought it would be, but in a really good way!  It turns out that my therapist is also highly sensitive, and also and Empath!!  So she TOTALLY gets how i often feel like I am bled dry, and so emptied that I can't function.  And she gets that this is a real thing and that I was born this way.  We talked for a while and then she asked me if I was familiar with chakras.  I said yeeeees, because over the past year or so I have been working on clearing my chakras.  And she asked me if I was familiar with crystals and I again said yeeeeess, because I have just recently begun to understand how crystals work, and have recently felt better from using them.  They work in a very subtle way that works really well for me, because I am so sensitive.  So anyway, she tells me I should be carrying crystals around with me all the time and I am thinking I must be in a dream because this agian, is nothing like what I was expecting!  And then she tells me to close my eyes and that she is going to take me on a guided chakra meditation!!!!!! I closed my eyes and I just started laughing because this was everything I have been wishing for.  Someone to put all this stuff together that I have been gathering, along with some psychology.  So then she takes me on the guided chakra meditation and it is AMAZING.  I mean seriously.  And she says she wants me to do it every day, and whenever I need it.  The really cool thing I learned from my session was that my energy is infinite, not something that can run out.  This is a concept that I know is going to shift the way I think about things.  

As a sensitive person, it is really important to take time for myself, to rest, to recharge, to be a little selfish.  Being selfish has always sounded to me like a really terrible thing to do.  Like really unattractive.  But taking this time to take care of myself is really important.  This is not an easy thing to do when you have a family and work a full time job.  But over the past few years I have gotten better at slowing down, asking for help, and taking better care of myself.  These things are so important. So here I am, in this picture, with my daughter.  I chose this picture because I think i look really good in it.  But this is obviously not my daughter's best picture, even though she is beautiful no matter what she does!  I am learning to be a little selfish in baby steps :)

What does this have to do with MTHFR?  Well, I'm pretty sure that being highly sensitive has to do with my compromised nervous system, due to being born with a two mutated MTHFR genes.  The same compromised nervous system that lead to my being a bed wetter.  Hey, you know what?  I just read that Sarah Silverman was a bed wetter!  Maybe she is a mutant as well!  Good night.  

Bed Wetting and Self Love

       

   

Before I start this post, I just want to say that I don't in any way post this stuff in order for anyone to feel sorry for me.   Some of it is pretty sad.  I post this for two reasons:  1.  By putting it on my blog, I somehow process and release the information, which is very healing.  2.  That maybe someone else will read it and find another piece to their puzzle.  

I recently read an article by the AMAZING Dr. Ben Lynch, about bedwetting being connected with the MTHFR mutation.  Needless to say, it blew my mind and really brought me a sense of peace.  I was a bedwetter.  This is a stigma I have carried around my whole life.  I wet the bed until I was somewhere between 7 and 10 years old.  It was embarrassing and a huge pain in the ass.  My mom never made me feel bad about it or anything, but I knew it was crappy to have to clean it up every day.  I just absolutely had no control over it.    I had a plastic mattress protector.  Staying at friends' houses just didn't happen at that age.  I can remember one time, staying at my cousin's house and basically being awake all night because of worrying about wetting the bed.  This was another thing in my life that separated me from everyone else.  I never, until a few days ago had any idea why this happened to me and not everyone else.  I speculated that maybe I was molested as a child but just didn't remember it, because bed wetting is a way that children protect themselves from getting molested.  I even went through therapy to dig down and see if anything ever came up.  Nothing ever did.  I also speculated that maybe because I am sensitive to wheat that eating wheat when I was a kid made my bladder more sensitive.  I do think that is true, but I think it has more to do with my homozygous MTHFR A1298C mutation.

So Dr. Ben Lynch wrote this about how bedwetting is related to MTHFR.  He said that the Central Nervous Systems of people with the MTHFR mutation (and I'm sure especially with someone who has double mutated copies of the gene) does not develop at the same rate as it usually would.  Slow methylation has affected my development since birth, and probably even before!  And holding your pee all night is controlled by your Central Nervous System.  So if your Central Nervous System isn't fully developed, you won't be able to hold your pee all night.  When I read this a giant light went off in my head.  Oh!  I get that!!  And what followed, which I totally wasn't expecting, was this wave of such gigantic, immense compassion and love...........for myself.  I suddenly felt myself totally protective over myself, like a loving parent.  It was the most awesome feeling.  It was another one of those things that explained so much and put everything into perspective.  It was sort of like if I had no thumbs, and struggled throughout life trying to pick things up like everyone else does without concern.  And suddenly I realized, OH! I DONT HAVE ANY THUMBS!! I have struggles a lot throughout my life and every single thing seems to be linked to my mutation(s).  When everyone else is skipping through life with smiles on their faces, I am sitting over here with some weird ailment, trying to look like nothing is wrong.  Trying to act normal.  At the beginning of my health journey I had a couple of dreams about this.  One was where I went to the doctor because I had a giant hole in my chest and the doctor was like, "oh, that's not that big of a deal.  You will just have to live with it."  And basically, quit being such a baby about it!  In the other dream I was frying my own heart in a frying pan, thinking to myself, "well, I can't put it back now, it is half cooked!  And how am I even functioning with no heart?"  Weird dreams.  But they were about trying to be normal, like everyone else, even though some very large things were going wrong.  

Well, my nervous system has always been compromised.  When I was a little kid, my grandpa told me I used to just shake all the time.  I can sort of remember it.  I had insomnia as a child.  I worried all the time.  I can remember at about 11 years old feeling depressed.  It just got worse over the years.  If something stressful happened my whole system was wrecked for days.  And then I put myself into stressful situations like working in a Psychiatric hospital!  What was I thinking??!  Then at around 45 years old things started getting bad enough that I really was losing my grip.  You might wonder why I waited so long to get help and address these things.  Truth is, I went to a lot of doctors and had a lot of tests, that all came out normal.  I went to the doctor about being dizzy all the time.  I went to the doctor about being tired all the time.  I went to the doctor about being depressed and having anxiety, and about having such bad menstrual cramps that I thought I would die.  About having cold hands all the time, about having heartburn, about having allergies.  I thought someone would link all these things together and realize they were all somehow connected.  Never happened.  Western medicine has done nothing for me.  Seriously, nothing.  The minute I started getting anything close to better was when I started seeing a Naturopathic doctor.  And addressing my issues from the roots, not just trying to fix the symptoms.  It is a long road and I'm not nearly done, but I am definitely on the right track.  I just want to throw out there that the things I have talked about on this blog are NOT NORMAL and nobody should have to just try to live with them or feel like they are being a baby by complaining.  Yes, you will probably have to pay for a Naturopathic doctor out of your own pocket if you decide to go that route.  And there will be supplements you have to buy also.  And you will feel guilty for spending the money on yourself.  But each of those things have been so important in this journey, and have contributed to my foundation of self love that I am building.  

                        

Stomach Stuff and Kurt Cobain

                         

One of the things that happened when things started really going downhill for me, was that my stomach got all jacked up.  I started getting this really bad heartburn after I ate........EVERY TIME.  It got to the point where my entire esophagus, like all the way from my throat to my stomach, just hurt most of the time.  I would feel it in the middle of my upper back too, and at the top of my stomach.  And it really didn't matter what I ate either.  It was far past annoying.  

That's when I decided to get an upper and lower G.I.  (neither of which are as bad as you think they would be)  The results told me I had G.E.R.D., Gastritis and a Hiatal Hernia.  My G.I. doctor's brilliant plan was to give me Omeprazole.  And I was like, "Ok, so you want to give me a medication that is supposed to turn off some of my acid makers in my stomach and that is supposed to make me better?  And then what? I take them for the rest of my life?  How will I digest my food if my acid is turned off?"  It just made no sense to me.  And I read things like how your stomach learns to make more acid makers if you take those medications.  So then you have to increase your medication, and so on.  I took the Omeprazole for a while, but it never made any sense to me.  I knew the answer was not to stop the acid, but to discover why my esophagus and stomach were hurting and fix that.  

Right around that same time, I came across this youtube video that explained that what a lot of people have is actually chronically LOW stomach acid, which causes the sphinctors at the top and bottom of your stomach to go haywire and open and close at the wrong time.  The video explained how if you drink some apple cider vinegar before you eat, it will fix this.  So I tried it, and it worked!!  My Naturopathic Doctor also recommended this.  

Fast forward to now, I recently started drinking lemon water first thing in the morning, to help my liver detox.  Well, I started noticing my heartburn returning, for what I thought was no apparent reason.  I was thinking that the alkaline result of drinking lemon water would be a good thing for my stomach.  But it turns out that your stomach NEEDS to be a certain amount of acid (on the ph scale) in order to work right!  So I was throwing my ph off just enough to get the heartburn again.  I stopped the lemon water and presto!  My heartburn disappeared.  I also learned that with MTHFR, in the general breakdown of the body that happens from undermethylation, the stomach is the first organ to be affected by this.  And as things decline, you become less and less able to absorb nutrients from your food because your gut is getting more and more not ok. 

G.E.R.D. (Gastroesophageal  Reflux Disease) is like some kind of epidemic!  So many people have it.  I recently watched "Montage of Heck", the documentary about Kurt Cobain, and through the whole thing, I just kept thinking he must have had G.E.R.D.  He constantly had this chronic stomach pain that he couldn't get rid of.  I know from personal experience how that can affect you, and how getting rid of the pain, any way possible is all you think about.  And the dark places you go when you cant make it stop.  Kurt turned to drugs and eventually suicide.  And I was wondering about his MTHFR status.  My theory is that he had the MTHFR mutation.  I was speculating that maybe if Kurt Cobain had discovered drinking apple cider vinegar before he ate, he might still be around today.  If you are having trouble with G.E.R.D., go to Youtube right now and type in "gerd apple cider vinegar" and lots of videos will pop up.  I can't remember the name of the lady who did the video I saw, but I'm sure there are others that are just as good.  Peace.  

It just means...SO MUCH!

                                      

I have this friend.  Her name is Paula and she is hilarious.  She is a Special Ed Teacher.  The amazing thing is that we both have the MTHFR gene mutation.  I, as I have mentioned before am Homozygous A1298C.  She is Compound Heterozygous.  That means she has a mutated copy of the A1298C variant as well as the C677t.  We have known each other for about 12 years.  As soon as I suspected I had the MTHFR mutation and started researching it, I knew she did too, because we have struggled with the same issues over the years. In fact, we both were seeing the same Naturopathic Doctor for a while.  So we both got tested and found out within about a month of each other that we had the MTHFR mutation.  We took a test at first to find out just our MTHFR status, and have since both taken the 23 and me test.  We are waiting for the results.  We did our tests on the same day and were texting each other back and forth, 

Me:  "Ok, I'm spitting now," 

Paula:  "Dude, I don't have enough spit.  I haven't drank anything all day!"  

It was hilarious.  We text each other every day.  Most of our conversations seem to be about how we slept.  I can't even begin to tell you how it has been to have someone walking beside me on this MTHFR journey.  Sharing the ups and downs, and just day to day stuff that nobody else would understand.  Like never ending conversations about supplements, foods, feeling like crap, Naturopathic Medicine, etc.  I'm not glad Paula has the mutation, but at the same time, I sort of am!  Paula understands completely the good days/bad days, the depression, the anxiety, the weirdness, overmethylating, detoxing, all of it.  When you have the MTHFR mutation, you feel like you are the only one on the planet who has it.  Having a friend with the same weird problems makes me feel not so weird.  We are trying to learn about histamine right now, and how to decalcify our Pineal Glands for better sleep.  Paula and I pick each other up on a regular basis.  We talk about everything.  Here is one of our text conversations:

Paula:  Came all the way to Whole Foods and the only zinc they have has copper in it!!!

Me:  Weird.

Paula:  Dumb.

Me:  Super dumb!  Do they have a Mercury supplement there as well?  LOL!

Paula:  Ha!  New name for this store.  WHOLE ASS.  HA.

Me:  LOL!!  Seriously laughing my head off over that one.  

 

Paula and I met when we both worked for the same non-profit agency, working with people with developmental disabilities.  Eventually we worked in the same program and Paula was like my boss.  We used to get paid for doing yoga, going on hikes, and identifying wild flowers  Well, Paula had to do a bunch more work because she was the boss and all, but you get the picture.  Paula said she had her 19th nervous breakdown when she worked there.  We got in trouble one time for discussing inappropriate subjects a little too loudly, in the break room.  And we used to "spring" this vagina picture on each other, when we least expected it.  It was SO FUNNY!  It was from some sort of training about personal safety.  One time I put it on Paula's computer keyboard, so when she pulled out the keyboard it was there.  I think she sent it in the mail to me one time!  She also got me a tiny pack of wooden "Stim-U-Dent" plaque removers and stuck a tiny version in the package. 

Paula and I have helped each other figure out so many things!  Like how to use Niacin for when you have taken too much of something that makes you methylate, like saltwater or Methyl B for instance.  One time Paula took too much Niacin which gave her a stomach ache.  Paula was like, "Can you take Niacin to counteract the Niacin?"  Haha, MTHFR humor ;)  I look forward to the day when we can look back and go, "Man! We were sure miserable back then!  Look how far we have come!!"

So Paula, if you read this, I am forever grateful to have you in my life.  To have someone to share this MTHFR journey with.  If I didn't have you around to help me figure things out, I just don't know what I would do.  It just means...SO MUCH!

       

Having a mutation is WEIRD!!

Caution:  This is sort of a downer  : /

All sorts of weird things have happened to me throughout my life.  Things that made no sense at the time, and I now understand that they were likely all related to having a genetic mutation.  Here is an example.  I have always had allergies.  General nose allergies.  Like I wake up every morning with a nose full of snot.  So somewhere in my 20s, I decided to have allergy tests, to find out what I was allergic to.  They drew six vials of blood and tested me for everything under the sun.  And guess what.  The test showed that I was not allergic to anything!!  Well, now I know that it has to do with my histamine response always being turned on.  I'm working on that one now by avoiding high histamine foods.  I also learned that if you have a certain amount of leaky gut going on, which I did, that can affect the results of some tests.  I took a food sensitivity test about two years ago that said I was not sensitive to wheat, which is a bunch of bullshit!  Funny how the lady at the Functional Medicine place didn't take into consideration that I might have a leaky gut that might affect the test.  I learned that from my current Naturopathic Doctor.  That's the way it is when you have a genetic mutation.  You learn little bits of information and gather and collect them yourself.  I have had a lifetime of going to doctors for various things, and the doctors not having a clue what was wrong with me or how to help.  It's frustrating to say the least, and you just have to take your heath into your own hands.  

Here is another example.  I have had flu shots exactly 3 times. Every single time I had a flu shot, I got the flu.  And not just a mild version, as I have heard can happen.  The worst flus you can imagine.  Like I seriously thought I was dying.  I now know that has to do with my lack of methylation.  The way I understand it is that if you have methylation issues, the place the flu vaccine is supposed to attach in your genes can be blocked with toxins.  So the vaccine just ends up floating around your body, and instead of protecting you against the flu, it gives you the flu!  That is seriously messed up!  And weird.  Needless to say, I don't get flu shots anymore. 

I have always been incredibly sensitive to many things.  Alcohol is one.  I am the person who gets hammered from drinking one beer (when I drank beer) or one glass of wine.   I always thought it was because I am a small person.  I still don't understand it really, but it also happens with medications and many other things.  Weird.

Migraines are really weird!  Thankfully I don't get them anymore, but I used to.  When I first started getting migraines I was in sixth grade.  I saw this weird fluttery thing in my vision (an aura) that started at one end of my vision, then slowly moved from one side, accross to the other side.  It was very scary, uncomfortable, and I didn't know what it was.  And I would feel nauseous, and think I was going to throw up, but then never did.  Then the headache would hit.  It was horrible.  It makes you feel like hiding under a blanket, in a cave.  Nothing would make the pain go away.  I would often go to sleep when I got the headache, and when I woke up the pain would be less, but not gone.  And I could feel the remains of the headache for a day or two afterward.  

It seems like there have always been these weird things happening to my body, throughout my life.  When I was young, it was confusing and made me feel alone.  The adults in my life didn't know how to help me.  It was the same when I had such horrible cramps due to Endometriosis. The only thing I knew to do was take Ibuprofen and lay down.  And that didn't always help.  Even when I took a whole handful of it.  I visited doctors repeatedly when I was in my 20s and 30s for cramps and all they ever wanted to do was hand me painkillers.  I always saw painkillers as bandaids that sort of worked, but didn't really help anything.  It is super scary, especially as a kid, having so many weird things happening to your body that you seem to have no control over.  It changes you and turns you into a person who is not so happy all the time, always knowing there is something dreadful about to happen.  I am so thankful to be learning all the things I am learning now.  And at the same time, I am really sad for the younger me, who was often alone and confused about mysterious pain, discomfort, and weirdness.  

Sorry this post  turned into such a downer!  It really didn't start out that way!!  Peace out.     

My first post.

So, this is my first blog post, ever.  I am a person who found out recently that I have a genetic mutation.  I am Homozygous for the MTHFR A1298C mutation.  That means I have two copies of the mutated gene, one from each parent.   And what that means is that my body does a really crappy job of getting rid of toxins and things that most people get rid of naturally.  I have always known that my body doesn't work like it is supposed to.  I have had a lifetime of health issues because of the mutation, including but not limited to:  Endometriosis, Depression, Anxiety, other undiagnosed Mental Illness, Fatigue (not like oh, I'm tired fatigue, but I'm freaking exhausted all the time fatigue), Thyroid Antibodies (I don't officially have Hashimoto's Disease because my Thyroid isn't destroyed enough to call it that, but I do have the antibodies and the low Thyroid symptoms), G.E.R.D., Gastritis, Food Allergies, Muscle Spasms, Abdominal Pain, Sleep issues, Dizziness, Sun Induced Eczema, Headaches (regular and Migraine), Leaky Gut,  etc.  Fortunately, I am not experiencing all these symptoms right now!  I am a Spoonie.  That's me on the left.

I always thought I wanted to make a blog after I found out all the answers and considered myself to be healthy.  And pass on my information to people who were struggling, to give them answers.  My husband recently convinced me to do it now.  I do feel like I am pretty close to getting it all figured out, but I still really struggle, on a daily basis.  If you are trying to figure out methylation, do yourself a favor and go to the Facebook page called, "Keep it simple methylation" and ask to be added.  Then read the article about the 5 steps.  It blew my mind when I read it.  It explained so many of the things I was not understanding.  Of course there is also MTHFR.net for a ton of good information.  Methylating is what regular people do naturally, that gets rid of toxins and turns the the things you eat into nice things like Seratonin and Dopamine, or Norepinephrine.  When your pathways are all blocked with toxins, that conversion doesn't happen correctly, and you end up with a bunch of health issues.  I have also learned a lot and connected with a few excellent people on Instagram.  I gained some confidence, strength, and guts to even talk about all this stuff, just from connecting with folks on Instagram.   And also with some encouragement from my husband.  I guess I used to think I was in this all by myself, and I had to figure it all out on my own.  Now I know it is going to take a village.  Something really important for people with the MTHFR mutation, that is pretty much accross the board, is to stay far away from Folic Acid.  Like don't even look at it!  Seriously, in any form.  Not Folate, but Folic Acid.  Folic Acid is like a manmade version of Folate and it will wreak havoc on you if you have the MTHFR mutation.  I can speak from personal experience, as I was taking a liquid B complex for a year or so, that had Folic Acid in it.  I was horribly depressed the whole time I was taking it!

Here are some of the things I am doing to try to get better.  I eat clean, gluten, grain and dairy-free food. I cook almost everything I eat myself.  I take supplements: Cod Liver Oil, Vitamin D, Vitamin C, Probiotics, Sam-e, 5htp, zinc, Niacin, and Magnesium on a daily basis.  I am the person who tried taking an active B complex and for a week, felt amazing!  Then I completely crashed.  Over methylation.  I am still learning about that and how that works.  Now I have my B vitamins separated out into separate pills, which I break down even further, into 1/4 pills.  I am extremely sensitive!  I buy gelatin capsules to separate out my supplements.  I tried Amino  NAC for a little while, and then started getting heartburn and symptoms of Over methylation, so I am giving that a break.  I walk daily, about a half hour.  I am learning to meditate, which has never been easy for me.  I try to do that daily, but it usually ends up being about 4 times a week.  I sometimes do yoga, or just stretching.  I don't put anything on my skin that I wouldn't eat.  I am learning that I can't do everything.  I ask for help.  Ok I guess that's it for now.  Please do remember that I am not a doctor.  These are just my experiences