The years of symptoms no one recognized, and the moment everything shifted.
If you read my last letter, you already know what the Quiet Grief Club is about. This is the first part of the story behind it.
Before all of this, nothing about my life pointed toward art. I worked with adults as an orthopedagogue, trying to understand behavior and support people who were stuck. I was good at it, and I assumed I’d do that work for years. I didn’t draw, I didn’t paint, and I never thought about either one.
Then my body started pushing back in ways I couldn’t explain. Headaches, exhaustion, gut problems, nausea and vomiting became daily life. It went on for at least five years and got gradually worse from 2018 onward, when I was pregnant with my daughter. Every specialist I saw (and there were many) blamed stress or anxiety. I heard it so often that I eventually believed it myself. I was pregnant, then a new mother, so of course my body was having a hard time. It felt normal to struggle.
Until it wasn’t. Until I collapsed and everything went black.
