It is late summer in 2007, I’m 18 years old, and I’m loading the final boxes of my belongings into a 7-seater, light blue, ’97 Nissan Quest Van that I purchased from my father for $1, (because the Jew in him was brought up to make sure that all significant exchanges of equity be formally, officially, legitimately paid for.)

I’m moving to sunny San Diego with my best friend from high school because I hate the endless rainy dark winters, because I hate the last six years of family dysfunction and trauma, and because I really hate Hillsboro.

When one grows up in Hillsboro, Oregon and outsiders ask where you live, you just say “Portland”. Everyone is familiar with Portland, and really, you just cannot bring yourself to admit that you have just spent the last 15 years of your life in the far more boring, far more racist, far more narrow-minded suburb of the famous City of Roses, known for being a liberal mecca of art and organic farmers markets.

Hillsboro is Portland’s Republican cousin who makes vaguely sexist jokes while adjusting the wedgie of their tan sweat pants, and you only see once a year at Thanksgiving, hoping you don’t get stuck sitting next to them at the long dinner table.

It is late summer in 2013, I’m 24 years old, and I’m lying flat on my back on my dark purple yoga mat on the floor of my room in my Uptown, Chicago apartment. The pain is so excruciating, so fully felt in every corner of my small form, that silent tears roll down my cheeks and I ponder the dark thoughts that I am prone to pondering the last few months:

“How did I get here? How did I get this sick? Why does my body hurt so badly? I want to die. I really feel like I could just shrivel up and die now…that might be a lot easier than mustering up the energy to push through every day feeling this badly, faking my smiles, and teaching teenagers with a brain that feels fifty pounds too heavy, dragging myself out to be social when all I want to do is never get out of bed again…maybe dying wouldn’t be so bad.”

I roll over onto my side, then my knees, then I grab hold of my bed, hoist myself up, and immediately start googling “healers in Chicago”. Maybe, just maybe, there’s still someone left out there that can help make my sickness go away.

I’ve been to western doctors, and naturopaths, and chiropractors. I’ve done endless blood tests, and poop tests, and pee tests, and I’m currently taking over 30 different supplement capsules per day, and I’m going to therapy, and pursuing what I love, and making good choices, and eating well, and it doesn’t seem to be helping at all. Nope, definitely not helping. Definitely still feel like I want to die every day.

I fall asleep that night as I always fall asleep: crying into my pillow and asking God for the hundredth time- “what the fuck am I supposed to do?”