Why We’re Still Sick: Mould, Trauma and the Myth of Doing Everything Right

For the clean eaters, the athletes, healers, cycle breakers and trauma survivors who did it all and still got sick

Mind, Microbiome, Mould, Midlife Peace this Mindful Monday :)
You can eat clean, move daily, meditate and detox.
And you can still be sick—because everything is connected.

How many times have you had COVID?
Share in the comments.

I’ve had it four times now—and I saw my life flash before my eyes a couple of those times, especially in the fall of 2024, when I developed a life-threatening leaky body and leaky muscles.

A person can die simply by working out in a mouldy gym because of the DOMS effect.

You can be the personal trainer, the stress cleaner, the soul doula—and still feel like your body is betraying you.

You can bleed for years.
Collapse from fatigue.
Vomit after drinking healthy teas and food from the earth.
Faint from misophonia and repeated concussions.
Lose your memory from your youth and beyond.
Endure heavy, painful periods—all while being told, “your labs are normal.”

This post is for the ones who did everything right and almost died anyway.

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🌿 Born Into Stress

Many of us were born into stress—into wombs shaped by mycotoxins, trauma, antibiotics and emotional shutdown.

Did you give birth to a firstborn who is petrified, shy and anxious from a toxic womb and birth?

As parentified first-borns, we became petrified perfectionists and people-pleasers, conditioned to keep the peace.

Our childhoods unfolded in tense, water-damaged homes—from low-income housing to military bases—where mould festered unseen and grief saturated the air.

There, we mastered the art of performing wellness for the world while silently suppressing our own pain.

When we begin to detox trauma and toxins, we start letting go of people-pleasing and perfectionism.

We trade them for pausing and playfulness, reclaiming the youth we lost and grieving what was never safe to feel.

We create new boundaries, protect our c-ptsd soul and begin to choose love, peace and presence.

Now we live in bodies that carry the weight:

• c-ptsd, anxiety, depression and freeze response

• chronic fatigue, fibromyalgia, migraines and brain fog

• hormonal chaos, early menopause, pmdd and infertility

• gut disorders, skin flares and autoimmune storms

• mould illness, mcas, histamine intolerance and environmental sensitivities

These are not random illnesses. They are patterned. They are poetic. They are the body’s way of saying: I’ve been holding too much for too long.

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🏠 When Healing Spaces Make You Sick

Many of us got sick in the very places we tried to heal—gyms with hidden mould, homes with water damage, offices with toxic air, even while stress-cleaning a lover’s hoarder home.

Mycotoxins from mould can trigger immune collapse, hormonal shutdown, and neurological chaos.

They mimic menopause.
They mimic madness.
They mimic mystery illness.
And they often go undetected.

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💔 The Trauma Loop

Childhood trauma—especially sexual abuse, parentification and emotional neglect—rewires the nervous system.

It makes us hypervigilant, perfectionist and petrified.
It makes us clean obsessively, people-please compulsively and collapse quietly.

Trauma survivors often develop:

• Leaky gut, leaky brain and leaky muscle

• Autoimmune conditions, chronic inflammation and hormonal shutdown

• Dissociation, insomnia and suicidal ideation

And when we seek help, we’re told it’s just anxiety—or just menopause.

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🌸 The Sacred Pause

But midlife is not menopause.
It’s a sacred pause.

It’s the moment we stop performing wellness and start reclaiming soul care.

We pause.
We play.
We let go of perfection.
We listen to our bodies.
We detox our mouldy homes, our habits and our histories.

We stop asking “What’s wrong with me?”
and start asking “What happened to me?”

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Healing isn’t linear.
It’s lyrical.

And you deserve to feel safe in your body, home and story.

Let’s chat in the comments:
How many times have you had COVID and did it change your health trajectory?

I’ve had it four times and it was a major wake-up call... we must pause in midlife like our life depends on it, because it does.

Sending Loving Kindness from Canada’s Capital,
Dee
Creator of The BodhiBerry Peace Tree Method™ — Rooted healing for your womb, walls and worries.