my body is a machine that does not work very well

Añadido: 2026-05-27

[00:00:06]For the first 17 years of my life, I had what I used to think was a severe chronic anxiety disorder. I had a major panic attack every couple of months, sometimes more. Frequent sleepless nights paralyzed in existential dread. I had more phobias than you could name.

[00:00:25]heights, deep water, natural disasters, the worst of which was a fear of bugs that had gotten so bad I refused to visit Australia because I was scared I might see a big spider while I was there. This is how I lived my life, believing it was just the way things were. Little did I know the issue was my diet. For my 18th birthday, I decided to have a childhood food binge. I asked my parents to buy all of the junk food that I used to eat as a kid. Neutrorain, fairy bread, 2-minute noodles, M&M's, Vegemite, you name it. The plan was to put on my favorite movies and binge my heart out, which I did for multiple days. Now, I'd spent my whole life in a state of constant anxiousness, but this time was different. It felt much worse.

[00:01:17]In fact, it kept continuing to get worse with each passing day. We went on a camping trip up in the mountains, and I couldn't find a single moment of peace.

[00:01:28]My mind was racing with existentialism.

[00:01:32]Fear of death, fear of eternity, fear of myself, intrusive thoughts, minor panic attacks. My brain felt like it was on fire. To make the noise go away, I did what a lot of us would do. I hid in my room, scrolled on my phone as much as I could, and ate Skittles and M&M's to alleviate the fear. But it kept getting worse. A couple weeks later, my brain finally snapped. I was sitting in the living room at night with my family and was struck by a sudden feeling that the world had collapsed below my feet.

[00:02:06]Suddenly, nothing stood between me and eternity. I saw my death, infinite and empty. running my thumb back and forth on my teeth until it bled. I tried to make the thoughts go away, but I couldn't. My heart raced, my breath quickened. My family saw something was wrong and tried to comfort me, but it was no use. They no longer held any weight in my life. Nothing was real.

[00:02:32]Nothing was permanent. I spent the next 3 weeks in a continuous hellish panic attack. I would wake up, tear my room apart, throwing my mattress and bedding against the walls. My mind would scream until I had no energy left. Then I would collapse out of exhaustion, cry, and try to numb my thoughts with scrolling again. Nearly every day, I lay on the couch with no life in my eyes as my mom played comforting videos on the TV to try and help me. When I gained the energy, I'd mumble things like, "I wish I'd never been born." And what a cruel joke existence is. One night I looked up at the ceiling and I said to God, "Show me a way out of this or I will kill myself. I can't go on living like this."

[00:03:20]Thankfully, God answered my prayer. My mom is a big believer in natural health.

[00:03:26]She has rejected the modern medical system and has embraced essential oils, fasting, health diets, vitamins, all the likes. If it weren't for her, likely I would have been put on anti-depressants and spent my life masking all of my symptoms. But my mom had other ideas. We started with a 72-hour fast, nothing but water and salt for 3 days. After that, my mom did something called a hair test, which scans a follicle of your hair and tells you what foods your body is currently struggling to process.

[00:03:57]Weirdly, rice came up as one of the first things. Now, a couple of years ago, we had cut out gluten to try and help me. And I'm a big comfort eater.

[00:04:07]Sugar and carbs all the way. So, without bread, rice had become my crutch.

[00:04:14]Everything I ate was rice. Sushi, butter chicken, fried rice, you name it. But anything was worth trying to feel like a human again. So, I started an extreme elimination diet. No refined sugar, no rice, no bread, no wheat, no pasta.

[00:04:33]After a couple of weeks, something crazy happened. Not only did I recover from my horrible 3w week spell, my general anxiety was going away. I gained my confidence back. No more panic attacks, no more existential dread. My phobias got less and less until I wasn't even that scared of bugs anymore. As the years have gone on, it's taken a lot of trial and error to find all the foods that affect me. We discovered that vegetable oils, natural colors and flavors, potato, all set off my anxiety as well. So now I live on a very boring diet of strict paleo. But I have no anxiety. Of course, I have the normal amount of anxiety that you're supposed to have. When scary things are present, I worry about them. When I have a reason to fear, I do. But the rampant anxiety is gone. What plagued me my entire life was cured by a change of diet, fasting, essential oils, and vitamins. I'm still not sure what my problem is. We believe that it is something like the MTHFR gene mutation, a disability that causes you to not be able to detox processed foods.

[00:05:47]Whenever I eat the bad foods again, my anxiety does return. But it's nothing that a quick 3-day fast and plenty of sleep won't fix. If you're out there and you have anxiety that feels impossible to live with, I beg you to give fasting and a paleo diet a try. It might just take you from suicidal to living the best life you've ever lived. Thank you so much for watching. Have a great rest of your day.