Growing Up Holistic
When you’re raised by a holistic health practitioners, popping pills is all you know.
By Samantha Gross, Concordia University
Holistic healing, as I had been given to understand it at ten years old, essentially meant seeing a more religious doctor who really wanted me to take a metric fuckton of supplement pills.
Now that I’m older, the definition feels all the more accurate, except now I can understand some of the larger words they use.
Also, I no longer have to cut my metric fuckton of pills into smaller sizes.
If any of you out there are holistic health peeps (my homies!), you’ll know there’s more to it than that, and you probably don’t have to keep reading this article. But, you’re totally welcome to keep reading because you’ve already entered the second paragraph and by the Law Of Reading Online Articles you are obligated to read to the end. Or at least past the first picture.
Those of you that are less familiar with the practice, you’re already obligated to keep reading, simply because you already clicked on the link, so you’re obviously looking to learn at least one thing. So read on, internet friends.
Alright, so there are a few things you need to know in order to truly understand the crazy world of holistic health believers (and their resigned children, who just tagged along at first because it usually meant smoothies afterwards, but have been going for so long now that they don’t really know how to stop).
There’s a lot of talk of chakras, which honestly the first time I heard I wanted to turn tail and run. That’s some “Avatar the Last Airbender” shit. I’m not even completely sure what chakras are, just that apparently we have them and it’s really easy to totally fuck them up. But once you get your shit together it’s supposed to feel really good. I don’t know if anyone’s ever actually managed to do that, but I imagine it’d feel like the way Nicole Kidman looked at the 2016 MET Gala.
It’s also a lot of flower oils and muscle testing combined with chiropractic work, so that “your body can tell you what’s wrong.” Muscle testing is essentially a strength test where the healer can use different points in your body to tell where the problem is. If that definition was unclear, that’s fine, it’s a weird concept that easier seen than understood. They are doctors though, or at least mine is. She has a doctorate from a fancy chiropractic healing school, so even if I don’t always understand the methods, I respect the hell out of that.
The other thing you need to know is that there are a lot of pills involved. All of them are supplements or vitamins or all natural plant-based medicines (not marijuana, I know what you’re thinking, stop that) that won’t kill you no matter how many you take. Fish oils, iron-managing pills, dietary supplements, digestive aids—if it exists as a prescription medicine, then there is a holistic counterpart. All of which taste terrible, by the way.
You know those plastic pills boxes elderly people have? The ones that specify which day of the week it is so they can sort out all of their medication and know what pill to take which day? I have one. For all the fucking holistic shit I have to take, I need a goddamn day-of-the-week pill box to remember it all.
“Why do you do it then? You’re a crazy pill-popping witch!” you might be yelling into your computer screen, my anonymous face too far away for you to shake. And you aren’t the first. My roommate asked in almost those exact words why I followed this crazy regime of pills and drops and creams and oils, and I’ll tell y’all exactly what I told her.
Because it works.
As crazy as this shit is, and as much as my professor calls me a Wiccan because of it, I’ve dealt with a lot of issues through holistic healing and came out better because of it.
But, this is neither the time nor the place for me to get on a soapbox and tell you to go all natural, because that’s a big commitment and none of us have the time or interest to read an article about that.
Now don’t get me wrong, a lot of the stuff works without damaging my liver the way medical drugs would, but it can sometimes seem a little crazy. I’m balancing the fence of “I sound like a witch” and “This shit actually works,” which is a weird place to be, but essentially means regular visits with the resigned acknowledgement that I look like a grandma with my enormous box of pills.
Most of the weirdest shit I’ve ever done has been in a holistic health office. I’ve worn colored glasses and verbally told myself to communicate more clearly. I’ve sprinkled flower essence oils on my forehead, and it never fails to make me feel like Simba in “The Lion King.”
I’ve had laser acupuncture done to my toes in order to deal with whatever the fuck is wrong with my liver. I mean, how fucked up does your liver need to be that you have to go through your toes to solve that shit?
But I have accepted my fate, to forever be the child of a holistic health believer, until I myself inevitably succumb to the dietary supplements and natural digestion aids of the holistic healing world, and the cycle begins anew.
It still tastes fucking nasty though.
