From H.D.

April 15, 2020

I almost gave up

I was invited to introduce myself and share some of my story….

When I was 20 years old, I went through some traumatic surgeries that caused severe chronic nerve pain, especially in my legs. As a result I ended up being hooked on highly dosed prescription fentanyl for 14 years, as well as on sleeping pills, antidepressants, a bad diet and a gaming addiction.  In between those various coping mechanisms the pain caused me to scream in pain for many hours every day and night, and at some point I attempted to kill myself as well, but luckily my will to live won out over that.

About four years ago, I’m 37 now, I came close to death by total organ failure due to the fentanyl, and in retrospect, knowing what I know now about that drug, I think I am lucky to have survived that long. I had tried to kick it a few times before but always failed, the withdrawal symptoms of extreme physical pain and total insomnia were just too frightening and overwhelming.

I wanted to give it one last shot, and told myself I will never take it again even if the withdrawals kill me, since continuing to take it would have killed me soon enough anyway. It was a horrible year but I managed to do it, and since then I’ve been doing all I can to heal and regenerate my mangled body, using a radical diet change, exercise, herbs, intermittent fasting and even energy self-healing, something an Australian medicine woman taught me. I just wanted to live and be happy, to finally feel comfortable again in my body after so many years of agony.

It worked, I got healthier and stronger, but I was feeling like a soldier and my life consisted of nothing but discipline and duty and pushing myself hard to get healthy again. I was missing happiness, there was no joy for life and no passion.

Then last summer I got this idea in my head to take off my shoes and socks and try to walk around barefoot. It was like lightning struck me, I felt this instant connection, a connection to myself, to life, to Mother Earth.. and joy. I finally felt truly alive again and passionate, and since then I wanted to live and hike and run barefoot. Even after just two weeks of it I could not stand shoes anymore, the idea of wearing them again was just unthinkable.

But then autumn and winter came, I live in Belgium so while it doesn’t get much colder than 30°F, my vitality just was too low and damaged still to cope. I also noticed that because of my scoliosis and left leg discrepancy of 0.7 inch, a result of being run over by a car as a kid, I had a twist in my gait that kept tearing open my right big toe, and caused a recurring blister in the ball of my right foot. With much pain and sadness I gave up being barefoot and resigned myself to wearing socks in the most minimalistic sandals I could find. At least this way the pain in my back still improved and my feet and legs got stronger too.

I had been reading some books about barefoot running, like Born to Run and Ken Bob Saxton’s instruction book, and had been practicing in my sandals. Then recently (4 April) I decided to give it one last shot, it got warmer again so I took off my sandals and socks and went out, and this time it seemed my body intuitively knew what to do, my gait changed on its own and the tear and blister did not occur anymore!

Since then, so two weeks now, I’ve been barefoot 24/7, I’ve been hiking and running over any surface I could find to toughen up my soles, and yesterday I went barefoot into the city for groceries for the first time. It was so freaky and exciting, I got weird looks and funny comments, and I get these moments almost every day now where I just burst into tears from joy and happiness, and from gratitude.. gratitude for my parents who supported me all this time, for myself for not giving up, for life and existence itself.

Being barefoot gives me this intense feeling of freedom, joy and adventure where ever I go. I also realized that it is this sense of adventure and freedom that I sought in role playing videogames for so many years, but it was fake of course and never satiated me.

It is also thanks to information on your website that I got into living barefoot, that I came across the idea that it is even possible at all. Because in general people, including my family, believe that it is not and tried to convince me not to. Luckily I am a very stubborn person, which is also what saved my life I guess during the fentanyl detox.

So thank you for having created this community and the website and keeping it alive, it played an important part in giving me back my joy for life and my happiness. 😀

H.D.