24/11/2025
MY PERSONAL JOURNEY INTO NERVOUS SYSTEM DYSREGULATION
I want to share a bit of my story today: how I ended up completely dysregulated, with symptoms that don’t respond to typical treatments and don’t fit into one single condition. Sometimes a real story means more than tons of theory. I feel both unlucky and privileged to be able to share it from my own path.
I had a fairly typical upbringing in Poland, with some issues that go beyond just my privacy. I received the usual level of criticism and comparison to others, which made me feel I was never quite safe or worthy (this is not at all a criticism of my parents – they did amazing things and the best they could with their capacity and knowledge). Life is not perfect. We carry on.
In my teens I became very adrenaline-oriented and for many years I pushed my body into great exhaustion. I did a lot of rock climbing, cave exploration, long distance running andadventure racing. Between the ages of 15 and 25 I developed a mindset of training a lot and training hard – a mindset so many of us fall into. I often didn’t give myself time to recover, and although I was never a professional athlete, I occasionally reached 20 training hours per week, which, without professional guidance, was far too much.
I also became asthmatic and highly allergic – losing breath is a huge threat to the system. After moving to my university city, which had much worse pollution, I started having major immune issues, recurrent colds, and at one point faced the real threat of not being able to pass the year.
I became a high-achiever in my own unique way. I studied at two faculties at the same time (one of them was physical education, which required a lot of exercise), worked part-time jobs, was active in the student council, and on the side still trained a lot, partied, and maintained relationships. I fell into the illusion that I could keep going like that forever. On top of everything, I went on three student exchange programmes abroad, believing I would still manage to pass all exams and graduate. I kept moving places, making new friends and saying goodbye to others. It looked awesome from the outside, but my system constantly had to adapt, scan for safety, and adjust to new environments.
In the meantime I contracted Lyme disease and ended up on antibiotic treatment – taking 2–3 antibiotics for most of that year.
Halfway through university I suffered a neck injury during gymnastics, which over the years led to cervical instability (something very common in already dysregulated people).
My body started collapsing: at just 23 I developed bulging and herniated discs in my spine. I lived with chronic pain for years. Pain that was bearable for weeks or months eventually becomes “normal” to the nervous system – but it still keeps the whole system on high alert.
I somehow managed to finish university.
A year later my body declined even further. At that stage I was spending half the day in bed. I travelled constantly for medical reasons, changed countries repeatedly, left friends and family behind – all in pursuit of health (or trying to escape surgery). I found and lost job after job because it was almost impossible to find work that didn’t trigger massive pain. Naturally I fell into financial problems. That, in addition to health concern, created emotional and financial instability all at once. My nervous system was on alert all the time.
After a long journey of “research and test” I found tools that stabilised most of my spine issues and I moved to Scotland for great work opportunities.
Three months later the famous flu arrived – the whole world experienced collective trauma. Typical scenario: I lost my job again, then Covid, quarantine with the background of barely having any friends or family here. I had just arrived.
At that point, the flat that I rented had a leak in the wall. In the winter dampness and mould took over it. I started feeling sick all the time.
As always, I tried to fight it off: cleaned everything, changed the furniture, waited for the symptoms to pass, but they only got worse. I couldn’t sleep, I had constant low-grade fever, diarrhoea, breathing problems, skin issues, a feeling of being drunk all the time; the only relief was being outside. I didn’t know it yet, but my body had become extremely reactive to fragrances and mould. Changing flats didn’t help at all, so I left again, seeking help and safety in my homeland.
That return (the feeling of failure) devastated both body and mind – I was overreacting to mould and chemicals (often called multiple chemical sensitivity).
With many ups and downs I tried to recover using various trauma-oriented methods. After a few months of successful recovery I came back to Scotland and started working again as a spinal therapist – only to suffer a severe hand injury that put me out of my beloved work for a long time. At that point it felt like I had been fighting my whole life and something always went wrong. I completely gave up for a while and fell into depression. My body started showing strange symptoms: reflux, teeth grinding, rosacea, sound sensitivity.
On the surface nothing made sense, but on closer look everything matched perfectly.
Overall, for the last 15 years I have mainly been trying to solve problems, and I always framed it as a fight.
I needed to stop fighting and begin a journey into safety and relaxation – something I didn’t even know I needed, and I’m on a daily practice of “doing it” now.
This story might mean nothing compared to what you have gone through, but it doesn’t matter. We all have a unique path into nervous-system dysregulation; we are predisposed differently to cope with specific triggers and we are exposed to multiple silent stressors in our own unique ways.
In the next post I will put this story into a theoretical framework.
Piotr
