My Sensitivity: My Superpower

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My journey with MECFS started long before my first official crash in 2018, and can be attributed to so many stressful primers before it.

But if I had to name one thing that paved the way for MECFS to take hold, I would have to say, it was God-given, high sensitivity to life. 

Since I was very young, I had the sense that I did not experience the world in a "normal" way. I was a tiny person with enormous feelings. The world overwhelmed, fascinated, thrilled me and broke my heart with its beauty every, single day.

I understand now that this immense sensitivity is my superpower. However, it is also my Achilles heel.

Managed properly, I can do and be amazing things in this world; offering a unique gift that is radiant in splendor when shared. 

Mismanaged, and there will be personal disaster; sickness, and all around calamity. 

Like most people in life,  I learned this the hard way.

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Until recently, I never knew how to care for my superpower. 

Without the tools, I experienced at young age,  great anxiety and fear about the world around me. Nightmares. OCD. A binge eating disorder. An easily wounded heart. 

This sensitivity made me an easy target for merciless bullying as a child, which then made me ripe for a toxic, abusive relationship in high school and college. 

This sensitivity caused my nervous system to be on high alert all my life, which constantly suppressed my immune system. Looking back now, I experienced fatigue as early as my teens, and it's rare to find a picture of me as a kid without a tissue in hand. I was always getting sick. 

This sensitivity, combined with constant peer rejection, made me into a people pleaser, an over-achiever, and a hyper-independent human being. It made me swallow my truth to appease my family and friends. It made me resentful and melancholy. It made me bury rage. It made me choose terrible 'friends'. It made me accept scraps of love from anyone who would throw them at my feet. I'd gobble them up, and call it a feast. 

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But it wasn't all bad. This sensitivity also made me an incredible artist, a wonderful story-teller, a poet and composer, and an endlessly curious, open-hearted soul, who is capable of giving life to other's experiences in word and song. It made me wonderfully extroverted. It made me intoxicated by nature, language and connecting with people. It made me wander the world solo, visiting almost 30 countries alone; growing, changing and snuffing out my learned ignorance. It made me someone people loved to talk to; to vent to, to lean on. 

It gave me the ability to experience tremendously intense joys and very dark sorrows. It made me wonderfully alive. 

Best of all, this sensitivity, mixed with a gift for language, and an absolute love of performing on stage, created within me, a voice. 

It took me nearly half a lifetime to find it; but once I did, it was like stepping into a dress that was custom made for me. Now, I love the sound of my voice reverberating through theaters and stages, on podcasts and in videos. I love to hear how unwavering it is now; how strong, how grounded. I love to hear it speak the truth.

For when we speak truth, we not only liberate ourselves, we liberate others. I hope my truth, the reality of my life before, during and after MECFS, helps liberate you to embrace the darkest, most forgotten parts of yourself, that voice inside, that wants to be heard; wants to be free. 

- Anj 

Watch My Recovery Story! 

In this interview with Raelan Agle, I share my journey with MECFS; the good, the bad, the ugly, the beautiful, and most of all, the redemption. 

After a lifetime of trauma, heartache and distress, I had my first crash in 2018, which led to pushing and crashing until 2021, when a severe crash left me both neurologically and physically crippled. This began my arduous recovery. It was two years until I was fully well.