The Herx and the Healing Crisis

Healing from mold has cemented the basics of detoxing pretty heavily into my mindset. Detox becomes necessary when the body experiences more toxins and stress than it can handle. Systems slow and become less efficient, and the toxins circulate. A vicious cycle ensues, the slowing of bodily functions inhibiting the removal of waste. 

Shit. Piss. Sweat. 

The body strives for homeostasis. It does its best to function around the toxins.

Symptoms arise, albeit subtle. The messengers for change.

A watchful eye might jump right in, implementing a detox protocol they have no clue how to sustain. Toxins flood in response, more than the body can rid itself of. 

A Herxheimer Response. 

It’s a devastating feeling, experiencing worse symptoms than you ever had. Had this been going all along under the guise of feeling semi-healthy? Is my body that overloaded? Really??

Common questions I’ve asked myself after feeling like absolute shit after trying to do a new supplement or routine. It’s frustrating and disheartening, so I rarely attempt much more than the basics these days. 

Clean food.

Clean water.

Getting sweaty.

Movement.

Ass in the grass.

Beloved bowel movements.

And hope for the best.

But it’s the awareness that this process has brought me that's invaluable. How many years did I spend utterly oblivious to the workings of my body?

I’ve come to regard emotional healing in the same way. For so many of us, the functions of our feelings go mostly unawares. Toxic things recirculating and damaging our psyches because methods of emotional defecation are skewed. How often do we fully embrace a ‘negative feeling’ to move it completely out of us? It’s hard fucking work.

So we drink.

So we smoke.

Scroll.

Gossip.

Shop.

Distract until it’s buried somewhere a hidden part of us can deal with. Preferably later. Repeat this cycle for long enough, and those damned subtle symptoms come up too. Resentment. Reactivity. Lack of intimacy. Bitterness. Pride. Negative internal narratives. The list goes on.

Our mind searches for homeostasis, too, the best way it can. 

But sometimes—some delicious times—whether it be through intention or accident or situation, we purge. Like a Herxheimer Reaction, a Healing Crisis ensues. Something triggers the psychic bile and we’re brought all the way down the bottom of our souls. Those forgotten and suppressed feelings rage and rage and rage through us in terrifying ways. The intensity could have us questioning our sanity, contemplating our entire histories in relation to our minds. The feeling of baring it all, of returning to the basest function of being controlled my emotions as they tear out of you, is hard fucking work. And hard to manage.

 For some it is the demarcation of the beginning of a new relationship to self. For most it is the freeing of space to perpetuate the same cycle.

So for this too I’ll do the basics. Feel what I feel. Notice when I’m running away. Speak up when it’s important. And hope for the best.