Rachel Whitfield’s Story

Written By Katy McGhie

Long Covid

 
“I guess my advice for anyone that’s ill is to find someone that’s recovered. Don’t stay in the groups that are full of all the people that are ill.”
 

    • General fear state

    • High achiever

    • People pleasing

    • A genius at catastrophising

    • Anxiety (although not diagnosed)

    • Possibly neurodiverse (not diagnosed)

    • IBS

    • Allergies

    • Nicole Sachs the cure for chronic pain podcasts and Facebook group

    • Gupta brain re training

    • The Lightning process

    • Breathing physio Kelly Mitchell

  • 6 months + another 9 months of health anxiety and “wobbles”

  • Early Struggles and Symptoms

    • Initial mild Covid in December 2020 turned into a recurring cycle of crashing and recovering.

    • Main symptoms included fatigue, brain fog, anxiety, and various physical ailments.

    • Misguided efforts to exercise and work exacerbated the condition.

    Diagnosis and Initial Treatment

    • Diagnosed with long Covid and advised aggressive rest.

    • Initial recovery attempts involved managing energy through the spoon theory and pacing.

    Turning Point

    • Realized anxiety and fear were major contributors to symptoms.

    • Discovered brain re-training programs which highlighted the role of the nervous system and neuroplasticity.

    • Recognized the importance of calming techniques and meditation.

    Brain Re-training and Emotional Healing

    • Used brain re-training programs like the Gupta Program and techniques from Nicole Sachs.

    • Emphasized the significance of emotional responses and letting go of fear.

    • Journaled to process emotions and released long-held anger and fear.

    Physical Rehabilitation

    • Slowly reintroduced physical activity with a new understanding of the mind-body connection.

    • Successfully returned to running and eventually completed a marathon.

    Recovery Mindset

    • Acknowledged recovery as a non-linear journey with relapses.

    • Emphasized the importance of celebrating small successes and maintaining a positive outlook.

    • Developed a new approach to life, focusing on love over fear and making healthier life choices.

    Final Insights

    • Recovery involved significant mental and emotional work to overcome the fear and anxiety associated with long Covid.

    • Encouraged seeking positive support and avoiding negative narratives and groups focused on illness.

 

Introduction

Over the last year, I have done a lot of unpicking of my Long Covid journey. Below is my latest thinking about what happened and how and why I recovered.

I had long covid. I have fully recovered 

It may seem like a miracle as I went from barely being able to walk to the end of my street to running my usual 5k running route and 10 mile cycling route in the space of a week and progressing to a half marathon 3 months later. I’ve since gone onto run the London Marathon. 

It’s not a miracle but I do have to pinch myself sometimes and it took me at least another year from declaring recovery to fully believing it and leaving the long covid experience well and truly behind. 

 
 
“I was kicking myself as I literally felt like I had ruined my life forever”
 

How it began

Let me take you back to December 2020. I got covid. It was mild (ish). A week of feeling about as sick as a bad flu. I didn’t have the classic three symptoms but I did have the most awful physical anxiety, brain fog and fatigue . I recovered in time for Christmas and went back to work and exercise. 

In the beginning of January I crashed. I could hardly think or function. It scared the hell out of me but after a week I felt ok again. I then crashed again and recovered again and crashed again and recovered . The same cycle over and over again.  Each time the crashes were worse and the periods of feeling ok were shorter. This is what has become known in ME/Long Covid terms as boom and bust cycles. It was the scariest illness I’ve ever experienced. Debilitating. 

At the time I thought this happened because I was doing a lot of exercise and working really hard and the viral load pushed me over the edge. I was kicking myself as I literally felt like I had ruined my life forever because I had exercised as soon as I recovered and I convinced myself it was permanent. 

 
“Aggressive rest they called it, where you lie in a dark room doing nothing for long periods of time. ”
 
 

Diagnosis

I went to the GP and my bloods came back normal. They couldn’t see anything wrong with me. 

I was advised I had long covid and it was the same symptoms as ME/post viral fatigue /CFS. Main symptoms – crippling fatigue, covid toes; covid strangle throat, burning back, anxiety, tight ribs, inability to regulate my temperature, dysfunctional breathing. 

The start of recovery

By mid February I realised I needed to take time out, my friends took my daughter to school, her sister came down and looked after her, my partner at the time had to clean and cook for me. I took a full month off work. My friends sent me cook vouchers. I could barely function. My poor Mum must have been going out of her mind as I phoned her every day in bits. 

I was advised to rest – physically, mentally and emotionally. Aggressive rest they called it, where you lie in a dark room doing nothing for long periods of time. So I outsourced everything I could and cleared my diary. 

I now don’t believe that I needed to rest in quite the way I was told but I do believe that downtime gave me the space to work out what was happening and was therefore the start of my recovery. 

 
 
“I believed I would never run again ”
 

Recovery attempts

I was advised by many experts and many fellow long covid sufferers I met on Facebook forums that I should PACE. I was introduced to something called the spoon theory. This meant managing tasks in a day so you stayed within an energy envelope and didn’t go over this for fear of crashing and then building up activity so slowly that you walked for example an extra minute a week and only every other day to make sure you didn’t react to the increased effort and not on days where you had increased other activity such as work. I was improving but it was painstakingly slow and I was frightened. 

I believed I would never run again and that recovery to some sort of normal life would take years. I even advised others the same believing I was helping them. I now realise this didn’t have to be the case. 

I had the worst insomnia and was told this wasn’t good as would make me worse, which of course made the insomnia worse. 

 
 
“My nervous system was in fight or flight and that I was keeping myself stuck there through my worried thoughts. ”
 

Turning point

The turning point came at the end of February when three things happened. 

I started to notice certain patterns. I would crash just before a work piece. I felt better when I cancelled work. if I thought I had overdone it, I would crash, usually 24 hours later. Same symptoms each time in the same order. As all tests had came back normal, I started to wonder whether my brain had more involvement in my recovery than I had previously thought. (I’m an NLP trainer and had done quite a bit about the mind body connection anyway and know it to be significant).

Looking back, anxiety was always my first symptom. At the time I thought this anxiety was a predictor of an impending crash. Over time I learnt it was just anxiety and I could influence this and it didn’t have to mean anything. 

Brain re-training

I discovered a brain re-training programme (the Gupta) which helped me realise that my nervous system was in fight or flight and that I was keeping myself stuck there through my worried thoughts.

This helped me to realise that it was software (my brain) not hardware (my body) that was running the show and that it probably wasn’t permanent. I made a decision that I was going to get better and when I did I was going to share my story to help others. 

I started to look for ways to find calm – meditation, relaxation exercises, finding joy in the small things, looking at my response to stress. 

Around the same time, I discovered Nicole Sachs podcasts, the Cure for Chronic pain and realised through listening to various episodes that recovery wasn’t linear but that relapses were an important part of the recovery process and not to fear them and that most importantly I could influence them through my emotional responses and each one contained an important learning. 

I started to look for upwards trends which was key. I realised that it wasn’t a coincidence that I crashed before a work piece – my anxiety about being well for work was literally causing me to crash. I also realised that this must be my nervous system and had to be neuroplastic as I had so many different symptoms that moved. 

 
“I spent time thinking about how I could view things differently.”
 
 

Journalling

Nicole advised to do a technique called Journal Speak to understand how my emotions might be contributing to my condition.

Through doing this, I realised that I had a personality that wanted to please people and achieve but I was living in fear. I had been living in fear for a long time. Fear of failing at work, at parenting, in relationships. There were patterns in how I managed my emotions and I spent time thinking about how I could view things differently.

I had been angry about getting covid and how the pandemic had been managed and how it effected me. I had been particularly fearful about giving covid to most of my daughters class.

Through journaling I let that anger go. 

Recovery

Over March and April I slowly emerged. Very slowly. I was house bound for a lot of that time. It was tough at times I was so low I didn’t know how I could carry on. Without a doubt the hardest thing I’ve ever done 

After months of fighting the insomnia and buying every sleep aid going all of which made it worse not better, I decided mindful acceptance was a better way to go. Ironically, I then started sleeping. I now sleep better than ever. 

It wasn’t all horrendous. I discovered a wonderful yoga group for recovery from Covid, bought a hot tub, read a lot and meditated. One of the things that I am convinced helped my recovery right was the fact that I celebrated every success, looked at what I could do and told myself daily that I would recover. I read success stories and avoided too much social media. But I also didn’t spend all my days thinking about the illness, I found things to enjoy about the down time.

I have kept some of these new hobbies. I think I’m conscious of living a slower more compassionate life now and I’ve made some new friends too 

 
 
“...the quickest way to convince myself and my nervous system I was ok was to slow down my breathing.”
 

Getting back to life

At the end of March I went back to work for two hours and of course, three days before, I crashed.

At the time i thought it was Sod’s Law but now I know that fear had caused this. I decided to do the work anyway. I facilitated a 2 hour workshop session on zoom and after I felt better. I no longer feared work because I knew I could do it in any state.

I started to build work back into my life in a phased return over the next few months 

I saw a breathing physio at the end of March who diagnosed me with a breathing pattern disorder. I was mouth breathing at 25 breaths per minute. Shallow. She gave me some breathing exercises which I did consistently.

I now realise this was caused by fear and the quickest way to convince myself and my nervous system I was ok was to slow down my breathing.

 
 
“The following month I did a 10k, the next 10 miles, the next half a marathon. ”
 

Learning to exercise again 

By May I was much better but I still believed I was exercise intolerant and when I tried to exercise I felt the familiar symptoms come back. 

I then attended another course (the Lightning Process) and this was the final jigsaw. Suddenly it all made sense. 

What I realised had been happening was that I had primed my brain so strongly that I should pace that every time I over did it (like a 10 minute walk when I only meant to walk 9 minutes) I would get anxious, and this would exacerbate symptoms which included a burning back and a tight throat (like being strangled) My brain would then interpret these, get more anxious, generate more symptoms, and enter a vicious cycle and then I would crash.

My brain was driving the crashes due to fear of what many experts had told me and my memories of earlier crashes and what I believed. 

After the course, I decided I had to have enough confidence in the theory to test it out. I got on my bike. I cycled for 20 minutes and got my Heart rate up to 150 (I had been told to stay below 100) and 24 hours later, I had anxiety which generated symptoms which led to more anxiety, but I was able to talk myself down as I now knew what it was. It was a hard leap of faith after so long believing something else. 

I went from believing I was exercise intolerant, to doing the LP and realising I was well, and then doing a 5k that week. The following month I did a 10k, the next 10 miles, the next half a marathon. I did the Bristol half marathon the month atfer, and completed it in just over 2 hours 

I got into London marathon for October the year after, on a charity place, and spent that summer training.

That first bike ride and first 5k was the most amazing though.

You can read about my marathon experience here.

 
“I had been living in fear for probably all of my adult life”
 
 

Recovery is a rollercoaster

That wasn’t the end. It’s funny people tend to think of recovery as a finite thing but over the next year I had periods of extreme anxiety and other symptoms would then come back (a particularly challenging IBS Period) but I no longer feared the symptoms or saw them as permanent because I knew if I worked on the thing that caused the anxiety then the symptoms would fade. Over time I stopped fearing anxiety which was key. 

Your illness is real

I’m often asked whether this means the illness is in the mind and the answer is no, the symptoms were absolutely real.

The mind-body connection meant that my anxieties were causing real physiological symptoms, and this was literally draining all my energy causing debilitating fatigue. 

Over the last year of unpicking I now believe that I had been living in fear for probably all of my adult life, that fear was very present during the pandemic and when I got covid. I don’t believe I got long covid because I got covid but because of the fear of having covid. In addition the narrative in the media fuelled this fear. Just before I got covid my partner at the time told me horror stories about people recovering and then getting sick again. I believe this primed my brain which kept the fear alive. The nocebo effect can be incredibly powerful.

I’ve had covid again since. I had it for 8 days where I felt pretty bad but after those 8 days I felt fine and even went skiing and didn’t develop long covid. I think this was the thing that finally allowed me to see it for what it really was and put fear of covid behind me.  

 
 
“I’ve learnt to be kind to myself and make decisions out of love not fear. ”
 

A new approach to life

I’ve had to relearn that it’s ok to be tired, to be sick, to have good days and bad days and that this is part of being human and I don’t need to make it anymore than that. 

I now see the whole experience as a gift because it allowed me a chance to create new choices as to how I live my life and view the world. And most importantly I’ve learnt to be kind to myself and make decisions out of love not fear. 

Having COVID and then managing to trigger my nervous system actually helped cause it's made me go back and actually reevaluate lots of things in my life prior to getting it.

I guess my advice for anyone that's ill is to find someone that's recovered. Don't stay in the groups that are full of all the people that are ill, don't start looking at people's individual symptoms because everyone's got a different signature anyway. 

Katy McGhie
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