Hi All,
I’m a 42 yo man and I’ve made myself extremely ill over the past 10 years, specifically the past 4.5. I heard @haidut on Saladino’s podcast recently and I was like, “That’s it! That’s what happened to me!” It answered a lot of questions, and that’s how I ended up here. I’ll give a brief description of the journey.
I’ve always carried extra weight since childhood, likely due to childhood trauma I experienced. I’ve always had an all-or-nothing, extra effort, more-is-more type of personality - likely due to the trauma. I lived destructively for many years - binge drinking, bad food, etc. This all led to benzo use through grad school, and then a hellacious benzo withdrawal. I’ve been 100% alcohol and med free for almost 5 years now. Here’s where things got bad - after I stopped benzos, I started CrossFit and combined it with low carb eating and some fasting. This has made me severely ill. I had no idea I was damaging my body; I thought I was doing the opposite! And, of course, I went all out with the CrossFit given my personality. For the past 4.5 years I’ve been sicker than ever with constant insomnia and fatigue. I’ve had amazingly stressful jobs during that time too. Yes, benzo withdrawal can be protracted, but I believe my issue is a cortisol one. I feel like I’ve destroyed my body, and I’m scared. I’ve been to every type of doctor trying to fix this and nobody has helped. It took me researching on my own to discover that physical stress and mental stress act on the same system. Nobody told me that and it took me digging through all the crappy adrenal fatigue websites to figure it out. It’s interesting - I slept well twice in the past 4.5 years. Once was during my honeymoon. I had extra money, no stress, no CrossFit, and I ate a s**t load of ice cream. Unbelievable. The other time was when my daughter was born without complications - stress relieved.
I’ve been away from CrossFit for around 6 months. I went back recently and was going to do it “lightly” but it threw me back to feeling very horrible. Never again. I’m only walking now.
So there it is. I can’t begin to explain how painful these past 4.5 years of insomnia have been. I feel very sick from it, and hopefully I can get better and stick around for my daughter’s sake.
Look forward to learning from you all.
I’m a 42 yo man and I’ve made myself extremely ill over the past 10 years, specifically the past 4.5. I heard @haidut on Saladino’s podcast recently and I was like, “That’s it! That’s what happened to me!” It answered a lot of questions, and that’s how I ended up here. I’ll give a brief description of the journey.
I’ve always carried extra weight since childhood, likely due to childhood trauma I experienced. I’ve always had an all-or-nothing, extra effort, more-is-more type of personality - likely due to the trauma. I lived destructively for many years - binge drinking, bad food, etc. This all led to benzo use through grad school, and then a hellacious benzo withdrawal. I’ve been 100% alcohol and med free for almost 5 years now. Here’s where things got bad - after I stopped benzos, I started CrossFit and combined it with low carb eating and some fasting. This has made me severely ill. I had no idea I was damaging my body; I thought I was doing the opposite! And, of course, I went all out with the CrossFit given my personality. For the past 4.5 years I’ve been sicker than ever with constant insomnia and fatigue. I’ve had amazingly stressful jobs during that time too. Yes, benzo withdrawal can be protracted, but I believe my issue is a cortisol one. I feel like I’ve destroyed my body, and I’m scared. I’ve been to every type of doctor trying to fix this and nobody has helped. It took me researching on my own to discover that physical stress and mental stress act on the same system. Nobody told me that and it took me digging through all the crappy adrenal fatigue websites to figure it out. It’s interesting - I slept well twice in the past 4.5 years. Once was during my honeymoon. I had extra money, no stress, no CrossFit, and I ate a s**t load of ice cream. Unbelievable. The other time was when my daughter was born without complications - stress relieved.
I’ve been away from CrossFit for around 6 months. I went back recently and was going to do it “lightly” but it threw me back to feeling very horrible. Never again. I’m only walking now.
So there it is. I can’t begin to explain how painful these past 4.5 years of insomnia have been. I feel very sick from it, and hopefully I can get better and stick around for my daughter’s sake.
Look forward to learning from you all.
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