This question came up over and over again throughout the course of my grueling health journey. After working with pediatric patients and autoimmune adults my entire career, I had realized my entire childhood/teenage years was suffering from undiagnosed toxic mold exposure, PANDAS, OCD, autoimmunity, and severe nervous system dysregulation.

Like the majority of patients and clients I’ve had over the years, I was thrown into the medical merry-go-round. I consistently came across providers who tried to treat symptoms with pharmaceuticals, missed the root causes of why I was sick, and led me into consistent dead ends, unable to actually empathize with me or understand what I was going through. None of them actually understood what it was like to be chronically ill or autoimmune, or what it felt like to truly suffer in the way I did as a patient. Why would they fight for an answer, if they never experienced what it was like to be in my shoes?