One Woman’s Astonishing Recovery from CFS, POTS & Fibromyalgia
Charlotte Stephens backpacking through Portugal after recovering from CFS, POTS and Fibromyalgia
Charlotte Stephens just returned from a 3-week backpacking trip through Portugal, where she scaled boulders and kayaked in the Mediterranean sea. She couldn’t have dreamed of such an adventure ten years ago as a university student stricken with a mysterious ailment.
At 19, she came down with glandular fever, also called infectious mononucleosis, when she was stressed about exams. It’s not uncommon for young people to contract “mono” but the viral symptoms typically pass within a month or two.
Instead of getting better, Charlotte’s symptoms worsened over an eight-year affliction. It progressed to the point where she couldn’t work or even leave the house.
“I had to shuffle myself down the stairs on my bum and crawl my way back up again,” says Charlotte. “My legs were so weak and wobbly and sometimes they would give way when I was walking upstairs, which was scary because I didn’t understand what was happening and no one else did.”
Doctors diagnosed Charlotte with chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS), and later with POTS and fibromyalgia. They prescribed medications, but the side effects made Charlotte feel worse. One doctor told Charlotte she must be depressed.
“I remember she was like ‘stop Uni, stop everything.’ She offered me pain medications and sleep tablets and was like ‘this is your life now. Try to manage it the best you can.’ That’s all they had to offer.”
Charlotte was understandably distressed but knew the vast array of disabling symptoms weren’t simply depression. Her muscles and joints ached like she had the flu. She got dizzy when she stood. Charlotte felt like someone pulled the plug on her energy source.
She frantically searched for relief in functional medicine, racking up more diagnoses: small intestinal bacterial overgrowth (SIBO), candida infection and parasites. She filled her pill boxes with the supplements doctors recommended and slashed her sugar intake. Keto, paleo and the autoimmune protocol—she tried all the diets.
At the time, the British woman was living in a house with visible mold on the walls. One practitioner blamed the mold for her symptoms. But none of the treatments work and Charlotte spiraled downward.
Learn exactly how Charlotte recovered in our video conversation!
From Diets to Brain Training
Eventually, Charlotte realized that modern medicine couldn’t help her. After watching several recovery stories of people who overcame similar ailments, she turned to brain retraining. Charlotte tried three different programs back-to-back.
Charlotte says brain training taught her about the pivotal role of the nervous system in causing, and unraveling, chronic symptoms. She became a believer. But the techniques weren’t shifting her symptoms and she still felt sick.
Looking back, Charlotte realizes she was putting heaps of pressure on herself to recover. After happening across one of my videos on emotional healing, Charlotte signed up for Be Your Own Medicine, a mind-body recovery program.
“I remember crying in your first video when you said, ‘You and your efforts are enough,’” says Charlotte. “Up to that point, I felt like I was doing things wrong, and I needed to be doing more and working harder at recovery. And you're really speaking to my heart and saying that you are enough. It was that kind of relax and know that it's going to be okay kind of feeling, and I really believed that.”
Over the next couple months, Charlotte dove into Be Your Own Medicine. She slowly started dropping from her head to her heart. She explored somatic meditations, self-compassion and inner child work. Charlotte began finding strength in her softness.
“Compassion was missing for me in my whole recovery journey,” she says. “I’d learned so much that I thought ‘I know it all. No one can tell me anything I don’t know.’ But it was the way I was coming at it. I was still trying do it perfectly or do it better. You talk about that a lot in your program, about working with your inner critic and bringing in your compassionate self.”
Another key piece of Charlotte’s recovery was learning how to respond to symptoms with mindfulness, rather than reacting with fear. Instead of fighting the flares and dips, she cultivated calmness though somatic tracking and other body-based meditations. Somatic tracking teaches us to experience uncomfortable sensations though a lens of safety.
With new understandings and practices in place, Charlotte started challenging herself during the 10-week cohort. She went on walks, visited with friends and even swam in the sea. Symptoms would arise but she responded with equanimity, which allowed them to pass more readily.
Deep Healing and Thriving
Charlotte soon felt resourced enough to face challenging emotions she’d had to bury. She explored her emotional world through meditations and writing exercises. Anger, sadness and grief rose to the surface. Sometimes, there was no story attached to the emotional waves. Other times, she needed to acknowledge the great losses she experienced in her twenties.
“Up until that point I'd been really living in my brain and not in my body, not feeling my emotions because they're painful and that's scary,” says Charlotte. “The course really held me and helped me access those emotions, knowing that I could handle that and I could feel safe doing it. I couldn't have done that on my own.”
Charlotte realized she needed to reconnect with her body in order to feel safe in her human experience. She learned how to be with emotions, rather than repress them. As she leaned into a range of feelings with self-compassion, the other side of the emotional spectrum began opening to her too.
“Your emphasis on play, joy and peace was another big piece for me,” says Charlotte. “Recovery had become serious, like a to-do list or a chore. When you’re ill for so long, you feel like you should be doing things to recover and then you can have fun once you’ve recovered. You flipped that for me. You were like, “How can you have peace and joy now even with symptoms? And then recovery happens as a side effect.”
Charlotte ran with this invitation—literally! In the coming weeks, she camped in the woods, danced at festivals and climbed peaks. Charlotte felt like she had a new body and wanted to see what it could do.
“I kept amazing myself doing thing after thing that I was like, ‘Wow! Look at me go!’ feeling so much pride in myself,” says Charlotte. “That was another part of the course. I was learning to celebrate myself and celebrate every little thing, no matter how small, although they felt really big at the time. I don't think I'd ever done that before, being my own cheerleader. I felt like my number one, biggest fan!”
It’s been one year since Charlotte found mind-body healing. She now feels 100% recovered but that doesn’t mean she pushes herself like she did in her early days at University.
Instead, Charlotte embarks on adventures with her inner wisdom: taking backpacking trips while pausing to tune into her emotions. If she gets occasional symptoms, she realizes she’s pushing too hard or overriding her body. She’s also learning to say no to things she doesn’t truly want to do.
Her healing experience was so profound, Charlotte took trainings to become a mind-body coach and yoga teacher. Eight years after falling ill with mono, she’s created a life that feels authentic to her nature. She’s cultivated trust in herself and her body.
Charlotte’s words of wisdom for people who are suffering with mind-body symptoms like Long Covid, CFS, POTS and chronic pain?
“No matter how long it’s been or how bad you think things have been for you, don’t give up hope,” says Charlotte. “You can recover. It is possible. Don’t be so hard on yourself! Be gentle and kind with yourself. Have that loving warmth for yourself. It’s hard and you're doing a great job!”
Keen to try a free somatic meditation like the one Charlotte used to recover? Sign up for my mailing list!
Want to learn more about Charlotte’s experience in Be Your Own Medicine?