Relapsed when trying to find a job

So I thought I'd post an update of my recent experience trying to find a job.

I haven't worked in two years and despite not being in remission decided to try to find a job. I figured if I went any longer my career would be DOA.

So for the past 6 weeks I've been putting my resume out, and doing phone interviews, and then flying to onsite interviews. All in all my interviews went sort of ok. I got a couple of offers out of maybe 9 onsite interviews. I think the 2 year gap on my resume is proving somewhat hard to overcome. My performance in the interviews themselves (typically 4-6 hrs long) was better than I expected given the Lyme brain but definitely some missteps here and there.

However a couple weeks ago I noticed my neck flare up again. It has been totally pain free for the past two years. However it seems like stopping treatment completely plus maybe the added stress of interviews caused it to become an issue again. Then a week ago my wrist started hurting again after being perfect for a while. Finally last week I was in a city doing an interview and started to feel like I was relapsing afterwards. I flew to another city the day afterwards and had to cancel my interview there because my brain was shutting down.

Fast forward 5 or so days and I'm at home assuming this is a relapse. My energy levels crashed and I decided to start taking antibiotics again.

At this point I think I'm going to throw in the towel. I've been treating for 5 years and although I've gotten to maybe 90% well it's clear my body is far from healed. I can't treat and work at the same time as the herxes are too debilitating.

I still have around 1 year worth of money left so I think I'm just going to travel and try to enjoy things as best I can. My personal philosophy is that this world is not all there is so I'm not really afraid of moving on. I gave it my best shot.

Best of luck to you all in your recovery.

I feel your pain. I recently got a new job and I have had brain swelling gradually increase. There's something with stress and lyme. I think stress causes natural brain inflammation, but with spirochetes in brain, brain can't tolerate additional swelling. That's my theory anyway.

Rikky - I haven't tried LDI. I'm just a bit tired of Lyme roulette at this point 5 years in.

gfields, I agree stress definitely makes things worse. I hope you manage to navigate treating Lyme while working. I did it for the first 2 years and it was tough.

blue - I always found that the % well assessments inaccurate. I mean I feel like I'm a car that mostly works, like maybe a few minor annoyances, so 90%. However this car also will break down completely at the worst times, how do I factor that in? Also I just can't take all the herxing anymore, especially when it seems like it's all just really treading water. As soon as I stop the treatment all the symptoms that I thought I had gotten rid of just return with a vengeance.

After 23 years of Lyme including 5 years of treatment I think I'm just ready to move on. I fully empathize with people who have children that you want to see grow up.

On a more cynical note, most of the Lyme "successes" I see are people like Aly Hilfiger and those in similar circumstances who are financially supported and have no need to work themselves. I think Lyme can be "managed" given the right circumstances but generally that means not having to work.

Project- Stress is obviously a huge player with this. Take care of your adrenals. Easier said than done.

I've enjoyed sleeping again for 1-1/2 years now. But one low stressful event will result in less sleep for a few days. I had to work the whole time, but sought what I thought were lower stress jobs. But nothing was low stress during the recession.

I think you have my car LOL. My mobile repair shop is in the trunk, complete with duct tape.

astroman said...
Project- Stress is obviously a huge player with this. Take care of your adrenals. Easier said than done.

I've enjoyed sleeping again for 1-1/2 years now. But one low stressful event will result in less sleep for a few days. I had to work the whole time, but sought what I thought were lower stress jobs. But nothing was low stress during the recession.

I think you have my car LOL. My mobile repair shop is in the trunk, complete with duct tape.

I agree.

And I agree with "it's easier said than done". Self treatment is a full time job all on it's own.
Properly supporting our bodies takes immense dedication.



Project, obviously you're familiar with methods of de-toxing. May I suggest you take a handful of these with you if you decide to leave treatment behind? Take some kind of liver support with you, some kind of binder in case you experience bacterial killing conditions, keep drinking your lemon water, and acv, some probiotics and epsom salt baths...

Try to eat as well as you can for your adrenal system's benefit...and please keep in touch.

We all share in your frustrations and want to continue sharing our hope with you. The door is always open!

Second that ...

I appreciate all your words of support.

I just feel like I managed to slog through life for 20 years with Lyme, and managed to recover to some extent over 5 years of treatment. I'm only throwing in the towel after many years of dealing with this illness and after carefully considering my options.

As you all know there is virtually no support for Lyme patients from the government or insurance providers. The prospect of trying to work and treat over the next 30 years is not appealing. I've realized that it's not possible for me to recover to a decent extent after having had it so long.

I'm just tired of the endless herxing and I simply think the rent I have to pay to inhabit this body is too high for me to continue on without any support from society.

I think the attitudes towards suicide are mainly colored partly by our Judeo-Christian heritage and also by the prevailing materialist philosophy that dominates science. I've come to believe both these views of the world are inaccurate.

Anyone interested in breaking free from the idea that your consciousness is created by your body would do well to read this book: /www.amazon.com/Irreducible-Mind-Toward-Psychology-Century/dp/1442202068

I think life is just like a dream of sorts, would you counsel someone in a nightmare to avoid waking up and so end their bad experience? I realize this is a shared dream and so others can be hurt if someone dies. However I have no children or significant other, and my parents have other children to care for them as they age.

I've had close to 40 years in this body in this world and for me that's enough. Rather than clinging to this worn out existence I'm excited to see what's next.

I don't know you, I'm fairly new to the boards, but I do know that every life is precious, even the sick or those considered 'less than'. I know as a mother, if my child (no matter their age) chose to end their life it would destroy me with deep and unrelenting guilt, I would forever wonder how I could have supported them better. Please ask your family for help instead of suffering in silence. Chronic illness is very isolating and difficult to deal with. But it is deceptively isolating. It wants to pull us away from those we love and it tells us lies that they'd be better off without having to deal with our health issues. That is simply not truth though.
Although I'm new on my journey, I've been ill for nearly 20 years now. It sounds to me like you need some serious detox support, not just more treatment. I think some of us just won't reach a complete cure but I do believe we can achieve a better quality of life.
I will pray for you, I mean it. I know the despair of fighting the same pain day in and day out. I have hope and I pray that you will find that hope too. Please reach out to your family, to friends, to your doctor. Thank you for reaching out to us too.

This is going to be harsh, but I have to speak from my heart.

I think you are reaching out, crying out, for help, that you don't really want to have to end it all, and are maybe subconsciously hoping that we can. (help)

That's why so many are being supportive, encouraging you to keep trying, you can even see proof that others have healed that were sick-even longer than you have been.

More than will admit have been feeling exactly the same way you are. We do NOT want to burden our families, or anyone. Hope flickers out in us often.

But we take the encouragement to heart and let it rekindle the hope again, and just keep working harder and better at healing.

Now, the harsh part of all this is, you might have done as you wish silently and we would never know.
But you chose to come here and tell us.

For me at least, it makes me wonder if I'm wasting my time too. I'm 65. I have many disabling conditions now, probably due to the 31 years now, of harboring these sicknesses.

It makes me wonder if my hope for getting better is a lie, and maybe I should end it all too.


You could make good use of your time by sharing your experiences with the different methods you've used since being sick. Post on the questions of others that ring a bell with you, what didn't work, and maybe some that did.

We are all we have in this war, each other, and the accumulation of our experiences will write the book of how to heal from this terrible, life destroying thing, one day.

Huddie, thanks. I love your term "reset". It is in fact what we do so many times in everything, even our relationships that we are trying to save.

Thanks again for your responses.

I have been taking this 3 months at a time for 5 years and unfortunately I'm at the point where I just can't keep the faith any longer. In trying to recover I've used essential oils, herbs (Buhner, some Cowden), Rife, anti-parasitics, and antibiotics. I am better than when I started but life still feels like a prison.

The problem I think is that once you get bone infections it's pretty much impossible to eliminate them. So they will continue to smoulder and cause misery for the rest of your life.

I'm tired of detoxing. I have to sauna every few days or everything falls apart. The constant feeling of toxicity building up is slowly driving me mad.

The problem is that I'm looking at a future where I most certainly will never again be able to have a partner (can't in good conscience expose anyone to these infections). Can't really be stressed in any way or I will fall apart and relapse so this means can't really even work on any interesting challenging projects. I can't even drink a beer without feeling terrible as alcohol causes die off. Years of these infections have damaged my brain in ways that makes socializing difficult.

On the plus side my body is ok and I can go biking and and skiing. I like reading and my brain still works ok in some respects.

Realistically if I had a trust fund or some kind of disability pension I'd be willing to stick around. Living on my own savings has been tolerable the past couple of years. Many people on these forums seem to be in the position where they can do this long term. But if you throw in the requirement of having to work I think that tips the scales to the point that I'm no longer willing to continue given the state of my health.

I think we should have some agency in our lives and be able make a conscious choice as to whether they are worth living.

I can relate project..except my body fails me ...there is a few people i met with a quality of life on bvt ...but today i put all of my old life and buisness in a storage ...likely to never see light again ...i wept at my old life in boxes ..lots of time energy money just collecting dust ...
maybe my flesh can return or not get worse ...maybe there is a nice lady with lyme that wants to help you start a foundation for research ?... i have a terminal bartonella with a super infection of toxo or proto , i have a lot to offer this world even if it to make a big stink ...dont go quietly into the nite ...rage at the entity that made this rage against the night of the medical eatablishment ...rage for a cause like a funding for treatment for regular peeps like you me july sam and huddie ...

i can accept i may have to do bvt for the next 20 years ..i cannot accept abx for 20 yrs ..i can accept the damage done ,i cannot accept any more damage ...
i ask for you to have serenity but plead that your purpose is not yet fufilled ...not even begun.
i beg you to consider a lyme geehad (u r a gee) so other will know your name like martz ,spector ,klinghardt ,hillfiger or horawitz ...burrascano is a gangster ...he fought the law and ny won but he fought ...maybe i am saying this for me or another member but samson was only of use after he was chained and blinded ...help us push down the pillars ?

Girlie said...

bluelyme said...
I can relate project..except my body fails me ...there is a few people i met with a quality of life on bvt ...but today i put all of my old life and buisness in a storage ...likely to never see light again ...i wept at my old life in boxes ..lots of time energy money just collecting dust ...

This made me very sad, blue. I can relate though. I used to talk about 'when' I go back to work.
I can't even say those words anymore.

thats why im blue , ...i was hoping to inspire . ...maybe we have to give up sheepherding slay the lyme goliath in order to become royalty? ! I will make a new post about trying to start activism up soon ...i aint going out quietly and i am charging each and every one of us with the duty and the priveledge to make some noise ! Especially you project!