I was almost running away from the past or the reality. I had all my friends who knew me with a normal skin. I was scared when they see my skin all red and patchy, they would judge me and say “Are you okay?”. It was true that I needed some change. I needed to change the social life as I think I wasn’t over the relationship I had previous years.

Anyway, I got on a plane on January first in 2012. I moved to Toronto, ON. In a new place, there are new people who didn’t know me and my past. I thought I could be a bit more comfortable with the skin if people didn’t know my healthy skin.

In Toronto, there were a lot of transitions happened for me. Even though I still think I would never live in the east side of the county, I have met the most beautiful inspirational people in my life.

Without them, I couldn’t go through the ups and downs of my healing. I’m not gonna lie that those ups and downs were super hard for me. But now I know that my body had to go through this in order to get better and the universe sent me those people to help me go through it.

Only one time, please let me use this…

About a couple of months after moving to TO, I had an important event back in my home. My brother was getting married and I was to attend. Because my family didn’t know what I was going through, how my skin looks like, I thought I didn’t want them to worry.

My parents thought I had a healthy skin the whole time as an adult. Since I was never be like a kid who talks things to parents, I just decided to use the cortisone cream before going to see them. So I could have a healthy skin while I was there.

Here is the picture in March (2012) after I “fixed” my skin. I was truly happy to have my “healthy” skin back again, even though I knew it was fake. I could expose my skin and wear some make up on again!

Be strong and start healing…

Despite of my joy having that smooth skin again, I knew I really needed to commit to heal. As soon as I came back to TO from Japan, I threw away the last portion of the cortisone cream. There were no way I could go to the walk in clinic to ask for the prescription again.

I was still drinking some alcohol and had some social life, meeting new people as I somehow kept my fixed skin since Japan. It was till the next winter. I started to have some flare ups again. Because of the new work environment, I enjoyed eating foods that I eliminated in BC such as gluten, dairy, soy and eggs with new co-workers.

New commitment

While I was still figuring out what I could eat and what not besides eating 100% organic, one thing I thought I should do was to quit alcohol. It was already easier for me to do so as I wasn’t really drinking much by then.

It was the last glass of vodka martini at a NYE party in TO. From 2013 January 1st, I am ever sober.  You can’t really stress the liver as it’s the most important organ when it comes to healing the skin.                        I also quit coffee as I started to become thirsty more as I drink it. I’d rather be hydrated than the taste of it.

As I was taking a course in IHN Mississauga for a certification of Iridology, I learned about “coffee enema” to help the body detox. Around the same time, I added a castor oil pack as a daily regime.

I have to tell you that those are a quite commitment. My regime at night was to do the coffee enema at least twice daily and castor oil pack 5 days a week.

Diet v.s. skin?

When I moved to TO, I started going to a rock climbing gym myself. Here, I met couple of my best friends for life. One of them is a girl, Anya who was a hard core vegan for 7years then, and was a holistic veterinarian. She was an out of ordinary girl whom I can’t say enough about. We hit off right away and talked a lot about deeper heavy stuff. I told her what I had been going through and what I had been trying out in terms of diet and supplements.

But one day, she said to me…

“Fumi, have you ever thought looking into more emotional traumas?”                                                                   ” You have tried almost everything but if things are not getting better… you may need to solve some emotional stuff.”

I mean… I knew the concept of being “holistic”, being a “whole”. We see us as a whole… mind, body and spirit. But I only understood it in my brain, not in my heart.

Emotions v.s. skin?

After about a year living in TO, I met someone who I liked to get to know more. He was really lovely and was interested in the healthy living and eating healthy.

Because his work schedule was completely the opposite, I could keep my daily regime for healing. When he called me on his break and asked me what I did in the evening, my answer was the same.

Coffee enema and castor oil pack!!

Me few years back was living to be loved by someone I loved. But then, I was doing something for myself… to heal.

Even though we only dated like a couple of months, there were interesting things happened to me. While we were dating, my skin started to get worse again. One day, he wanted to come over after work but I said I didn’t want to see him because my skin was so red and itchy. I was embarrassed to be seen by anyone. I insisted that we wouldn’t see that night. But he came over anyway. And as soon as he come to my room, he said to me..

“You look beautiful.”

“I don’t get why you think that you weren’t.”

I don’t remember I kicked him out of the room after that or let him stay. But I remember I was really really angry and hated myself… my skin. Despite of what he told me… I looked beautiful. And then, of course I scratched my skin that night and the next day, some part of my skin was bleeding.

During this relationship, Anya asked me why I was still with him because I was scratching my skin every time he comes over. There were always some anger coming out from me and as a result, I scratched till I bled.

I didn’t know why I was angry while I was with him. But I know the anger was causing more irritation in my skin. And for sure the anger was waiting for the chance to be released from my body for years.

 

Read my third step here.