raising money for my auto-immune healing journey!

Hello my name is Fin and I need your help to get my life back. After 9 years suffering from chronic illness and 9 years of searching for a solution I've finally found a treatment that is working for me and I need your support in pursuing it.

I want to do wondrous things with this life, and I commit to honour the opportunity you will give me with this support by doing everything in my power to get healthy and share all I have to share. I have so many ideas, books I want to write, music I want to make and things I want to learn bursting inside my heart, and I want to share all wisdom I've garnered from these long years of hardship, serve those who've suffered similarly to how I have, and help others heal too.

Please help me return to health so I can be me,

Thank you!

Fin

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9 years ago I was diagnosed with Psoriatic Arthritis in the US after my fingers and toes swelled up like clubs and became excruciating, leaving me unable to properly walk or use my hands.

Suddenly I had to leave my life behind, drop my aspirations and dreams for the future, to return home to the UK for treatment.

I went from being totally independent and traveling the world working for NGOs to bedbound in my childhood bedroom, being taken care of by my mum.

It took me almost 2 years of struggling with the NHS (the UK's national health service) and stuck in enormous pain, getting through the days with corticosteroids and painkillers to get on a long term viable medication that worked for me. After exhausting all other options, I was finally prescribed something called a Biologic, the highest tier possible of available treatment.

The medication worked amazingly well at first, use of my hands returned! I could walk again. I remember running down the street on the first day almost pain free in years, in glee and crying tears of happiness because I thought I'd gotten my life back. I got a part time job, started going to a writing group, and seeing friends again.

It soon became clear that though the medication worked well for my joints, it left me with disabling fatigue. My brain was full of fog, I couldn't think straight. Every time after doing something that expended energy, all of the things which excited me and made me feel alive, I would crash and be stuck in bed for several days. My nervous system became extremely sensitive and I found myself overwhelmed by many day to day activities: a noisy cafe, a conversation with a friend, prolonged movement. Eventually I had to give up the job and stopped going to the writing group.

I'd have good days where I'd see my friends, but what they didn't see was the enormous crash that ensued. This led to a strange dissonance where nobody fully understood how unwell I was, I'd be horribly depressed, close to giving up some days, but my friends would say "I saw you out the other night! It can't be that bad", and I felt isolated and alone with my struggles. It didn't help that I didn't want to be seen when I was truly sick, because I couldn't bear the image of myself as a sick person. I was 26 years old and I wanted to be out in the world happy and well doing what everyone else was doing, nor did it help that in the moments I was in the world I was running at full throttle, trying to enjoy the flashes of life I had access to, which led to further dissonance and longer crashes.

The fatigue worsened over the years, until I could no longer go out much at all. New hobbies I had picked up were dropped. I couldn't do much except lay in bed or on the couch. It became painful to sing, my greatest passion, to speak for more than a few minutes, or to exercise, some of the few remaining respites I had. Again after a long period seeking an explanation for what was happening to me from the NHS, I was given a secondary diagnosis of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome or "ME", a strange not-well-understood condition related to brain/nervous system inflammation and deficiency in the mitochondria, the energy transmitters of the body. I cried tears of relief knowing that there was a name for what was happening to me. But, I was also told in the same breath that the condition had no known cure.

However, I began to research and found many success stories online. People who had beaten the odds and returned to health through various means. I kept fighting. I would have periods of giving up, stretches where I felt there was no hope and I was spiralling into darker and darker terrain, I considered dying many times at these points, it is hard to convey just how hard these lows were and how close it came to killing me. But I never stopped trying. Each time I would pick myself back up and try something new, attempting various therapies, strange diets, retreats, healing modalities, harebrained ideas, even going to the jungles of Peru to work with Ayahuasca. I spent thousands of pounds exploring every avenue I could, and though some things helped in ways, it wasn't enough to shift the tide and my health kept deteriorating.

During my illness I was also going through another enormous fight for financial support: battling for disability benefits from the UK government. Because my condition was largely invisible, and because I'd have moments of high energy where I was out in the world, I was disbelieved and had to fight to prove I was deserving of the money. I remember once being deducted points in a capability assessment because I could pick up a carton of milk. The national systems of inquiry for those in need are deeply problematic, incapable of holding nuance for the reality of a changing and complex condition like mine, it is an abhorrent and dehumanising process - grading people and their right to support with a form of checkboxes. I remember another time a DWP assessor read from my private medical notes that I had gone for a walk and sprained my ankle, and used the reality that I could walk as evidence against my right to claim. My attempts to stay sane, get better, and retain my sense as a human being were leveraged against me to deny the support I needed. My mother at this time was providing for me and was near despairing with stress over having enough money to survive.

I was denied benefits twice and had to appeal in court twice and with piles of paperwork. It was gruelling and the uncertainty weighed over me. During this time I was forced to look for work, despite being bedbound 80% of the time. These were months of stress and terror for me and my mother.

I finally found a pro bono organisation of benefits rights lawyers willing to take my case, and with their help and after two tribunals, I won the right to receive money for my disease.

Three years on, I have been deeply unwell and my mental health has suffered immensely from the prolonged physical trauma and emotional weight. The condition deteriorated to the point the medication was no longer properly working for my joints even, and the inflammation slowly returned again in my hands and feet, as well as cropping up in my hip, shoulder, and knee.

A few months ago I decided enough is enough and that I have to make some radical changes if I want a chance at life and to really make a try of it. I decided I would dedicate myself fully to healing, and I knew that a change of environment was necessary, that being isolated in a room was only compounding the mental health problems which fed into the nervous system deregulation at the root of my inflammation. "How can you heal if you're living the life of a sick person?" became a mantra. I needed to break the feedback loop.

I sold my belongings, left my home and took off on a healing journey.

It was remarkable how much good getting out into the world did me, and though I was tired and sore I saw my emotional state shift and this reflected in my body, I felt alive again in moments! When an experience touched me and I felt the wind of life on my face and joy in my bones. It was as if connection and ease in being my authentic self were in themselves the medicine.

But I was still half committed, still trying to live outwardly and pushing myself too hard, still not in an environment fully conducive to healing, and still the changes needed to be deeper. I also knew that my medication was impeding my progress, that though it was keeping the inflammation down to somewhat manageable levels, it also had serious side effects and was contributing to the nervous system overwhelm at the core of my disease, and inhibiting me from fully addressing the root of my condition by obscuring it. I decided to jump in the deep end and stop taking it, one of the hardest decisions I've ever made. I left for Bali, a mecca of healing and well-being, to fully dedicate myself to my health and started a new diet and various therapies working on my physical and emotional body. On the better days, I felt progress, there were signs of promise! On the worse days I was pleading for my life in the bathroom mirror, praying to any god that might listen, in so much pain I could barely continue but willing myself to go on, just get through the day, the inflammation at a new height. I was struggling to engage in my treatment and do the inner work, the pain was too intense to get out of bed and I was too scared to relax which fed back in a loop. I knew I needed to find a solution fast.

It was then that I found Ayurveda, an ancient form of Indian medicine that I heard was helping many people with conditions like mine. Some of the recovery stories I heard were nigh miraculous. I decided under the advice of an Ayurvedic doctor in Indonesia to go for it, booked a flight to India after finding a hospital in the state of Kerala, and got on a short term course of steroids (methylprednisolone) to tide me over to get through the journey. The process I would undergo was called a Panchakarma, a long term live-in treatment where your body is thoroughly internally cleaned and re-nourished. With frequent enemas, a simple diet of rice porridge (literally just rice and water) to exclude inflammatory dietary triggers, as well as being given various treatments, natural medicines to flush and bolster the body, and procedures like steam baths, oil massages to break up toxins stored in the muscles and lipids, and having the hands wrapped in a herbal balm for several hours a day that reduces the inflammatory process. Additionally and importantly, I would be in a structured environment where I'd be looked after and supported to change unhealthy habits and do the deep inner work to regulate my nervous system, a place where the pain in the low moments wouldn't be so terrifying and I might have a chance at relaxing.

And amazingly, it worked!! I'm still at the hospital now and for the first time in my life I feel I've found a solid path to health. On the better days I feel tentative tears of joy welling! I slowly tapered off the steroids, from 16mg daily to nothing, and am now currently completely medication free. Most days the pain is tolerable, on the good days I feel an incredible sense of strength returning to my body, my brain is clear and my energy feels like it's flowing in spades.

It's up and down but the trajectory is looking really good. Unlike Western medicine this process is slow, it takes time to alter the process of disease. But the doctors are confident and signs are very promising.

Sadly my right to claim benefits to pay for my journey has been suddenly thrown into question, as the treatment is abroad and alternative and this violates DWP guidelines. I honestly am exhausted from constantly living under the stress of justifying my actions to the government, and the constant insecurity, even though I am fighting tooth and nail to get my life back I am distrusted and doubted. It is hamstringing my ability to relax and heal. My government will happily pay me to be sick and dependent in a bed slowly deteriorating for the rest of my life, but not for me to pursue my healing and stop needing money from them! Ironically, costing them far less.

I have been really worried about money since getting the news I might be losing my benefits. Treatment is quite expensive, and may need to continue on and off (Panchakarmas happen in courses for chronic conditions, with a break in-between for recovery) and I may need to repeat this for up to a year without a source of income. I have decided once and for all to get out from under the DWP and the constant auditing of my actions to fight for my life, for this reason I am asking for your support, to fully commit to my healing and to come back to the world and do all the things I love and bring all the gifts I have to share.

Money has been an enormous stress in this process, keeping me awake at night and jamming up my nervous system recovery with fear and uncertainty hanging over me, and I want to make sure I have enough to not worry and focus completely on my treatment. I am exhausted from the constant sense of unsafety from my financial situation, the risk that the DWP could halt my journey at any moment. I don't want to live in fear anymore. I am asking for enough to let go and stop worrying about whether it will be enough, and I really, at last, need some peace of mind.

The money will go to my treatment and hospital stays as well as other therapies in-between, seeing my psychotherapist, Ayurvedic medicines, a new special diet, supplements, and basic living expenses until I get back on my feet. You will be buying me a year to commit to my healing freely and follow the threads that path lays out for me as and where I need.

I would dearly appreciate your support and investment in me and my future, please help,

Thank you!!

With love and determination,

Fin