Toxic Leftovers
I accidentally gave myself really bad food poisoning in 2018. I wasn’t paying attention to how long leftovers had been in my fridge and I reheated them and ate them. BIG mistake. Just 24 hours of misery right? No. I became severely unwell with a bad stomach ulcer. After two months of suffering, I began to develop this insidious anxiety and depression.
Two different doctors did a whole bunch of tests on me and concluded I had pretty much nuked my gut biome, introduced something called H pylori, and that the anxiety and depression were a result of that due to the brain-gut relationship. So, they prescribed me some meds. I took one pill and immediately felt excruciating pain.
I threw up a load of blood and my heart started racing faster than it ever has before. Long story short, the medication was eating through my stomach through the ulcer. It took me seven months to recover. Now I suffer from OCD because I’m terrified I will poison myself again, or poison my family. The depression went away, but the anxiety has remained, along with a bad case of emetophobia.
Cooking meat is a big deal for me now. The main symptoms tapered off around October 2018, but then I developed IBS. My doctor tells me it will never go away. During my depressive state, I quit the best job I ever had. I’ll never get that back. I think that is probably one of the biggest mistakes I have ever made. One little slip-up in the kitchen cost me an entire year of my life.
And I’m still paying the price.