Thoughts from the recovering radicalized.

I’m ready to write publicly my thoughts on the phenomenon now known by phrases such as pastel QAnon, and Q-A-Moms. This podcast episode also defines and explores the topic. I’m also ready to publicly share the cognitive dissonance I’m living through every day, as a nurse practitioner married to a pastor. That post is coming…someday. Maybe. I know it’s time to take my private discourse public because I’ve run out of words to touch on it nicely and I’m still in pain; frustrated, even. I think I’ve got to talk about it, not to stir the pot but to be part of the solution. You see, I was once part of the problem.

When my husband and I started dating in 2005, I became very interested in the natural lifestyle. Chris was just happy to have a woman in his life again, and he and his two boys went along with my whacky ideas. We tried gluten-free recipes for eczema and used coffee to manage hyperactivity. We saw a chiropractor three times a week and stopped all vaccinations. I used essential oils instead of calling doctor’s offices and getting triaged for visits.. I made my own toilet paper with cloth squares.

As a new grad RN and a first-time mom, I chose to have a baby at home in 2009. My son took awhile to join us earthside and was clearly in respiratory distress immediately after birth. I didn’t take him in to the hospital. Instead, I called my chiropractor, who drove to my house and hung my son upside-down by his feet. It worked, I guess? My son’s respiratory rate normalized and he began nursing and making wet diapers. I’ll never know what happened, because I can’t go back in time and make a different call. My milk took days and days to come in, but I was adamantly opposed to formula. I used a friend’s breastmilk and fed it to my son in a bottle instead. I remember feeling ashamed to see him suck on a bottle, or a pacifier. What about nipple confusion?! I tore pretty ferociously down south during the birth, and it took nearly eight months to have sex again. I eventually saw a pelvic health physical therapist, but I never got checked out by an OB/GYN. Writing this now, in this way, feels wild. While I don’t have regrets, parts of my story feel so wrong now and yet, they felt so normal at the time. So normal that I wrote about them, right here on this blog.

At the time, there was no Instagram or TikTok. But we had internet forums and blog networks; health & wellness culture has always had an influence and made an impact online. It found me, a healthcare professional, and I bought in with no questions asked. If someone in the healthcare field challenged me, I pitied them. Surely, they were deceived. I had access to something they didn’t – the online natural family community. It was kind and welcoming and informative… the harmful and false information was simply and subtly sprinkled in among the rich treasures I found. Garlic really does help with inflammation and ear pain. Peppermint and lavender oils really do serve a myriad of purposes. Midwives really can and should attend the majority of most childbirths.

But one sliver of thought is never the entire pie of truth or lived experience, and I learned my lesson very quickly. One afternoon shortly after my son was born, I logged on to one of the chat forums one afternoon after my son was born, while still on maternity leave. I typed on and on about I chose to have a home birth and I chose to breastfeed in order to give my son the best life possible. A mom, who had both undergone a c-section and experienced difficulty breastfeeding, wrote back “How is the view up there from your high horse?” Well? How was it? How could I have emotionally distanced myself so far from another’s experience? Of course that mother wanted her child to have the best life possible, too. We all know breastfeeding is good for babies. We all know an uneventful vaginal birth tends to be smoother for all involved. How could I, a registered nurse and a follower of Jesus, painted such broad strokes that ended in such harsh prescriptions and judgments? The answer is simple, and complex.

I was in an echo chamber. I read what I wanted to see; the data I researched supported my viewpoints. I frequented film screenings and meet-up groups and health food stores, all of which supported my journey on the path to natural living. However, I never sat with an MD or a certified nurse-midwife and asked for their experience and expertise. I didn’t even learn the phrase evidence-based medicine until I was in grad school, nearly a decade later.

What changed? What was the turning point for you? What caused you to pivot and shift? I’ve gotten the same question in many forms a lot over the last year, and it’s a good one.

As I learned and learned and learned some more, I found the space to keep some of the old and incorporate the new. I still use garlic and essential oils. I love midwives dearly and even opened my home to visits when the local birth center was unavailable for a time a few years back. I ditched the homemade toilet paper, though. And eventually, I started agreeing to vaccines for myself and my kids. The change came in two ways.

First,  I learned to appreciate expert guidance, so long as each expert remains in their own lane. I’ve already talked about critically evaluating sources here and here; suffice it to say there is room for everyone at the table… but they’ve got to know their stuff when they pull up a seat. There is very little for me to learn about COVID-19 from a dermatologist who now owns a private laboratory and makes money off of making you think you’ve got a secret disease that only he can locate. Just like there is very little for me to learn about cancer-fighting diets from a really healthy blogger, or even from an oncologist. (The good ones, however, will refer you to a dietician specializing in such programs.) The expert is not to be feared or resented, but welcomed in the journey one takes through life.

Second, I began to hold every aspect of my life up against my privilege. I talked this about this here. It is privilege that allowed me to do the research, and seek out the non-traditional doctors, and take time off of work to get the religious exemption form for vaccinations, and change doctors several times. Just like the gospel, health and wellness has to work for everyone, from those with insurance and money to those without, for it to be good news. If my friend who has Medicaid for her kids can’t refuse vaccinations without threat of losing her insurance, who am I to prescribe this as good parenting? If my friend can’t afford gluten-free this or vegan that or even the right kind of essential oils, who am I to prescribe this as low-tox living? Checking my privilege has helped me see that advice has gotta work across the board and back, top to bottom, for it to be sound.

Nobody gets the corner spot on caring about the mental toll this pandemic is taking on folks. We all care deeply about that. Moms who have their babies at home aren’t the only ones who get to be concerned about the long-term effects of vaccines and masks and social distancing on our kids. Of course I worry about that. Heck, I used to be one of those moms. I get it. Women with beautiful hair and captivating hashtags don’t get to be the loudest about human trafficking. It’s been a real problem for generations and there are real orgs out there doing real rescue work.

And nobody, nobody, not even me, gets to live a life free of humility. Sooner or later, we’re wrong and there’s no way out but through. Nobody gets to speak in absolutes, words dripping with pride. Sooner or later, it leads to a fall. We are all changing, over and over again, along the way. It’s a blessing and a curse that the internet keeps track. But when we admit that we were wrong, when we confess to being deceived or radicalized or even willingly part of the problem, the truth peeks through and takes root. Healing sprouts. And we grow.