I wish the story stopped there, with meeting Dane, that I found my answer and I was miraculously healed. Unfortunately, a magic pill does not exist. There is no long-term healing solution that is found instantaneously and without some trial and error.

Once I met Dane and he agreed to take me on as a client, I was beyond excited and relieved. I was anxious to get started, ready to heal. We started with an evaluation where we reviewed my extensive health history, my current symptoms, my lifestyle, and other contributing stressors; the amalgamation that resulted in my dysfunctional body. Let’s get real here for a minute- the Michon that Dane first met was, as of this writing, 50 pounds heavier, super inflamed, pill dependent, sleep deprived, ashamed, and desperate.

Despite Dane’s best efforts to quell my apprehension, I still walked away from our consultation a sweaty, anxious mess, nervous about the journey ahead of me. To his credit, he took the time to educate me about why my body was acting the way it was and the approach he planned to take. The approach was no small feat – it included dropping my closest frenemy: Diet Coke, cold turkey cutting my sleep medications, and completely rethinking my high-protein low-carb diet.

So begins the ‘dark months’ as my husband and I not-so-fondly refer to that period. The time when we forced my body through an incredibly taxing detoxification. The time when sleep was even more rare than it had been, emotions ran dangerously close to the surface, and it was all I could do to perform my work duties.

Countless nights I found myself alone in my bed, facing off with my monster, frantic for sleep but scared to release myself to its grips lest the pulsing resurface. My sweet husband rode the waves with me- not only was he the primary care giver for our kids, the only functional adult in the home, but he was my caretaker and my companion through many of those long, lonely, drugless nights. He would offer back massages, head scratches, foot massages, anything to help my suffering body and mind to find peace.

I still can’t believe we survived the ‘dark months’. Truthfully, I didn’t want to survive. I begged my husband for relief, to let me access his gun cabinet to do anything to put me out of my misery. On nights when he had to snatch a few hours of sleep to be a functional parent the next day, he’d leave me to my own devices, in our room while he escaped to our extra bedroom in the basement. Those nights involved a lot of tears, Gilmore Girls, and sifting through old pictures and journals to try to remind myself of the person I had once been. He would often find me in the early morning, wide-eyed and pawing through my things, like a scared raccoon, caught digging through the garbage.

Suicide consumed my thoughts, throbbed through my veins, drenched my disordered mind. I would daydream of what it would feel like to end the misery, to do the deed. How I would prepare my husband so my kids wouldn’t find me. I reviewed our life insurance polices to confirm that they did not have any exclusions against covering suicide. I wrote letters to my husband and kids, tears falling from my tired eyes, absolutely certain this was the only way out.

I expressed my fantasies to my husband one day while we sat in the car, waiting to pick up my daughter from preschool. We sat holding hands, me in my second-day clothes, my hair askew, my body odor the third person in the car. It was his reaction that grounded me, that made me realize suicide was not the answer, never the answer. He gripped my hand tightly and with a shaking voice expressed that he could not do this life without me. The remainder of his life-saving oration still burns in my ears, in my heart, and is a testament to the power that words yield.

So how did I find relief? The detoxification process stripped me to my barest and stole my strength, my energy, my mind. Fortunately, I had my husband, my kids, and Dane in my corner and they weren’t going to let me fail. Dane was in touch daily, wanting to hear about my night, inquiring about my day,  making suggestions and cheering me on. But no one could do all of the heavy lifting for me. Ultimately, I had to walk this path by myself, but certainly not alone. Not without the support of practices I began prior to the ‘dark months’ and other healing modalities that I became completely dependent upon along the way.