How I Healed Chronic Illness, PTSD, and Depression Without Medication: The Truth About Food, Spellwork, and Self-Talk

✨ Content is free—but crows like snacks.

📸 Before You Scroll: Look at Both of Me

How food, spellwork, and self-talk saved me when nothing else did.

I wore those hoodies and extra pounds like armor. Held my body like it was a protest site. I didn't want attention—I wanted relief. I'd already been to the ER more times than I could count:

💉 Morphine
💉 Steroids
💉 Toradol
💉 Topiramate
💊 …and every “maybe this’ll help” med thrown at me by doctors who said things like, “You’ll just have to manage it.”

I was 235 lbs. But the weight wasn't the problem.

I was carrying:

• Fibromyalgia

• Cluster suicide headaches

• PTSD

• Bulimia

• IBS

• Hives

• Insomnia

• Depression so deep I stopped trusting my own voice

And those daily thoughts—the quiet kind. The dangerous kind.

I was 100% disabled. And completely invisible to the world around me.

I wasn't weak. I was sick and tired of being sick and tired.

And that photo on the right?

That's not a "weight loss success story." That's a woman stepping out of hiding. That's me peeling off the hoodie, shedding the armor, and choosing to be seen—exactly as I was, still 235 lbs, but no longer invisible. That's what it looks like when you accidentally reclaim your life in a blender. That's the face of someone chronically ill who finally listened to a pushy Virgo with a food processor and a YouTube subscription to The Whole Food Plant-Based Cooking Show.

That's what happens when pain becomes purpose, and smoothies become sermons.

And no—I didn’t plan to lose weight. I didn’t chase thinness. I chased relief. I chased freedom. And I caught it.

Because when I switched to eating real, whole foods—plants, grains, fruits, beans—the inflammation started fading. And with it went the chronic pain, and the shame. Eventually, even the weight gently left too, like it was never really mine to begin with.

But this photo isn't about weight lost. It's about life gained. It's about daring to stop hiding in my own skin.

And if you're lying in bed right now, scrolling at 2AM, silently asking, “Is this it? Will I feel like this forever?”

🕯️ Baby crow, let this page be your flashlight. Let these pictures be your altar. Because what comes next?

That's the part you get to write.

🧪 The Meds Didn’t Work

I was given medication for migraines, fibromyalgia, PTSD, and cluster headaches.
All stuff that messes with your brain, your nerves, your whole inner world.
So the doctors gave me pills to mess back.
They said, “This should help.”

But my body didn’t say “thank you.”
It said:

❌ What Actually Happened When I Took Those Meds:

• I got more suicidal – Like someone poured gasoline on the burnout.

• I gained weight – Even when I ate less. My body hit “store everything” and forgot how to stop.

• I got mean – Snapping, crying, feeling like a storm in my own skin.

• My brain fogged over – Like trying to think through peanut butter.

• I couldn’t sleep – Or I couldn’t wake up. Or both.

• My mouth dried out – Felt like chewing cotton balls.

• My sex drive vanished – My body forgot how to feel anything good.

• Weird physical stuff – Sweating, tingling, shaking, numb patches.

• Everything got worse before it got better – Except “better” never came.

I wasn’t "treatment resistant."
I wasn’t "non-compliant."
I wasn’t "too sensitive."

I was listening.

And my body kept saying:
“This is not the way.”

🥬 When Food Became the Spell

So I tried something radical.
Not a new drug. Not another prescription.

Just food.
Real food. From the earth. With no barcode.

And my body?
It finally whispered: “Thank you.”

✅ What Happened When I Ate Whole Food Plant-Based:

• My pain got better – Inflammation calmed down like a toddler after a nap.

• I had more energy – Like someone plugged me back into the sun.

• The weight fell off – No counting, no shame. Just relief.

• My skin cleared up – Like I washed my face from the inside out.

• I pooped regularly – Let’s be honest: game changer.

• My thoughts cleared – Brain fog lifted. I could think again.

• My moods stabilized – My spirit finally had nutrients.

• I slept better – Real sleep. Deep.

• Cravings faded – That junk food voice? Gone.

• I needed fewer meds – Or none. My body remembered how to work.

🍓 Bonus “Side Effects”:

• The grocery store became my pharmacy.

• My kitchen turned into a healing altar.

• I read food labels like they were spells.

• People asked, “What are you doing?”
  I said: “I started eating like I love myself.”

🪶 Louiquote:
“If the body’s the altar, food is the spell. Most of us have been cursed by corn syrup and cow’s milk since birth.”

🧠 When Self-Talk Was the Cure

Food was half the magic.

But the other half?

🗑️ Was what I stopped consuming.
And that included what I was saying to myself.

What I Used to Feed My Mind:

• Constantly triggering social media

• Fear-mongering headlines

• Violent shows that made my nervous system flinch

• Conversations that drained me

• People who made me feel “too much”

And worst of all:
Me.

I became my own troll.
Serving up thoughts I’d never say to anyone I loved.

❌ “I suck.”
❌ “I’ll never get better.”
❌ “I’m just messed up.”
❌ “I wish I could disappear.”
❌ “People always hurt me.”
❌ “No one understands.”
❌ “I do everything for everyone else.”
(And they didn’t even ask me to. Hello, martyr.)

It was a playlist of poison.
Looping. Looping. Looping.

Now I ask better questions.
Questions that point to softness, not shame.

✏️ Molting Moment: Inner Bully Banishing

Write down the cruelest thing your brain has whispered about your body.
Let it crawl out.

Then say:

“This is not mine. This is a lie I believed to stay small. I release it now.”

Write down what you wish someone had said instead.
(And say that next time.)

🪶 Louiquote:
“If the voice in your head talked to your best friend like that, you’d throw hands.
So maybe throw compassion instead.”

💌 For the Ones Still In It

If you're up at 2AM, scrolling, crying, clutching a heating pad and wondering if anything will ever change...

Come closer, baby crow.

🖤 You are not broken. You are molting.
🖤 You are not weak. You are awakening.
🖤 You are not lazy. You are healing from years of surviving in overdrive.

You don’t have to be perfect.
You don’t have to change your entire life overnight.

But maybe—

🥄 Try the smoothie.
📺 Watch the cooking show.
💌 Whisper something kind to yourself.
🫀 Say yes to the Virgo. (Or whoever’s holding the blender.)

✨ Just feed yourself like you matter.
✨ Because you do.
✨ You always did.

And the moment you start talking to your body like it’s listening?

It listens back.