​Crafting a New Vision for Healthcare: How Our Personal Journeys Shape the Future

Image by xiarimemecha from Pixabay

It has been thirty years since I was diagnosed with panic disorder; it was a major turning point in my life for many reasons. I was fresh out of university, struggling to find my path in life. Juggling three jobs, I was involved in an unhealthy relationship, after having my heart broken the year before, and had been involved in a car accident that led to another critical experience in my life on the witness stand in court.

One day, while sitting on a bus en route to meet my boyfriend at the time, I experienced (what I now know to be) a severe panic attack. I felt like my heart was going to explode and there was a vice-like sensation around my head. Desperate for air, I got off the bus and walked several miles to my destination. This episode left a lasting memory, particularly of lying in a cold dark cupboard at my boyfriend’s office for two hours before he could leave work. Once home, I was in bed for days with chest pains and nausea.

Trips to the doctor resulted in misdiagnosis and multiple courses of antibiotics, leading to bouts of candidiasis. I was at home for months, with very low energy and unable to work because every time I ventured out anywhere significant I’d get these episodes like I’d had on the bus. Without the internet, I turned to self-help books and tried an anti-candida diet inspired by Dee McCaffrey’s work on nutrition. I had wondered whether I might have myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME), otherwise then known as chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS), which is a serious and often long-lasting illness that keeps people from doing their usual activities.

A significant breakthrough came when a psychiatrist finally diagnosed my panic attacks. As I reflected on it back in 2019, in Want Better Health? Be Shrewd About Stress, this was back in the early 1990s, panic attacks were often dismissed as overreactions. And while ME and CFS are now recognised by the World Health Organisation, both being classified as diseases of the nervous system, neither were recognised as illnesses back then by “orthodox” medicine, and the psychiatrist had been rather scathing about this despite noting I was “clearly highly intelligent”.

Nevertheless, I discovered Christine Ingham’s book Panic Attacks which explained the anatomy of panic attacks and how to invoke the parasympathetic nervous system to switch out of fight-or-flight mode, leading to my recovery. I still recommend that book to others today.

Following my diagnosis, there was a trail of correspondence between the psychiatrist, the referring doctor at the hospital, and my regular doctor and I. As I wondered this week whether the impressions I was left with from that time reflected the reality, I dug out the correspondence and ran it through an AI engine, asking for an impression of the attitudes involved as a neutral observer.

Overall, it pegged the psychiatrist as being critical, judgmental, condescending and dismissive, with implied superiority. However, while I took it entirely personally at the time, I think the psychiatrist’s derision was pointed partly at the referring doctor (to whom his letter was written) for encouraging any notion of ME. He had taken “the unusual step” of copying me in, in an attempt to improve communications between me and my various medical advisors”. Unsurprisingly, it actually achieved the opposite.

Given that correspondence and my regular doctor’s response – which the AI noted as having an offhand attitude and making condescending remarks – I hadn’t been left with a false impression all those years ago. It fuelled an even greater determination to manage my own health, and out of it was born a stronger advocate for a more holistic approach to health.

This remains my attitude, but with it now is the desire to create a vision of a different future. It’s funny to think that the prevailing attitude I came across 30 years ago is but just a moment in time. What we think of as standard medical care changes constantly. My daughter was asking about convalescence hospitals, as there are a few old ones, now museums, which can be visited around New Zealand.

In my parent’s era, it was more common for people to be sent to one of those, rest and fresh air were a common prescription (and still the most sensible in many cases) but these days it’s all about micro surgeries and being in and out of hospital and back at work as fast as possible.

Nick Polizzi’s docu-series Remedy presents quite a compelling and concise history of healing that also explains why so many of us are feeling polarized around (what we refer to as) the conventional healthcare system in the western world. For many, it just isn’t cutting it.

So what is the alternative? It is a topic close to my heart. In the decades since that diagnosis I’ve been researching many aspects of health and healthcare in order to manage my own health and, in more recent years, that of my children.

Much of the last decade has been focused on raising them and learning more about developmental and inherited trauma, as I applied this to my own healing. I started my kids on homeopathic treatment at age 4 and 2. Before this, both had multiple prescriptions for antibiotics, but they haven’t needed any since.

My children are also no strangers to chiropractic care, predominantly to maintain a healthy nervous system, which also affects the immune system, and to ensure proper posture to prevent future issues. They are chronically out of alignment from sitting at school desks all day and using devices at other times. Overall though, apart from seasonal colds and flus – which are part of the body’s natural process – their health and well-being have greatly improved from a more holistic approach.

Along the way I’ve tried and come across many alternative approaches to health, and it’s the stories of those practitioners and their clients that interest me. I am in the process of starting to more formally research the varying approaches to healthcare around the world, in Western societies and beyond, to curate stories, investigate similarities and weave together the commonalities and create a vision for our future healthcare.

Imagine our current orthodox healthcare systems as a building on the right. I’m not interested in taking on that renovation project. Instead, I envision drawing a picture of an entirely different building on the left and bringing it to life with stories of places that already embody this vision. I see myself bringing people together, weaving ideas, spotting patterns, collaborating, and lending insight through my writing.

Reflecting on my journey, I’ve recently realized just how my career and life experiences have uniquely equipped me for the task of researching and creating such a vision. My background in driving sustainable strategic people change, managing large teams and complex projects, and aligning business objectives with cultural transformation has provided me with invaluable skills and insights in understanding what it takes to create systemic changes.

I’m always interested in people’s stories, and I’d love to hear from you if or someone you know can point me in the direction of people and organizations out there who are doing things more holistically. If you have a story to share or an organisation you admire for its different approach, please get in touch. Let's weave together a vision for a healthcare system that truly serves us all.

In my 2019 article, I emphasized the importance of taking personal responsibility for our health. There isn't a one-size-fits-all solution for everyone; instead, we each need to find what feels right for us at any given time. I echo the same now.

I encourage you to reflect on your own journey and consider how your experiences have shaped your approach to health and well-being. What insights have you gained along the way? How have these experiences influenced your understanding of what it means to live fully? Share your stories and thoughts, and let's learn from each other's paths as we work towards a more holistic vision for our future. Embrace life fully, recognizing the finite nature of our time here, and reclaim your power—your autonomy over your body, mind, and spirit. By doing so, you can live more authentically and richly.

​If you enjoyed reading this, you may enjoy Listening to the Signs – My Road to Health, You Have Amazing Options When it comes to Healthcare, Tuning In to Our Children’s Health (page 64) and Wake Up to the Truth About Healthcare and Healing. To be the first to receive these posts, you can also opt to subscribe to my blog.