About Me
Hi everyone!
Here is some more about me and my chronic illness journey:)
🩵About Me (Short Version)🩵
Hi, I’m Anastasia, the creator behind The Self Health Line. I’m 22 years old and currently in my senior year of college, studying neuroscience and environmental studies. When I’m not designing, you can find me tending to my indoor houseplants, crafting, working on my nonprofit, studying, or simply laying down and resting.
I used to be a collegiate athlete in swimming and track, having competed in sports since I was 3 years old. However, my dreams of athletics were cut short after being reinfected with Bartonella and Borrelia burgdorferi (Lyme disease) for the third time. My first Lyme infection occurred when I was 6, and I was reinfected twice more. I never fully recovered from the initial infection, and it led to chronic symptoms, including arthritis in my elbow, depression, PMDD, ADHD, paranoia, extreme sensory sensitivities, memory loss, brain fog, loss of some procedural memory, dizziness, extreme fatigue, and suicidal ideation.
Before receiving intensive treatment at Envita Medical Center in Arizona, I was on 7 medications just to manage my psychiatric symptoms. The treatment, which included a surgically placed permacath and daily IV antibiotics, saved my life. Without it, I wouldn’t be here today.
This journey inspired me to advocate not just for mental health but for the interconnectedness of mental health Lyme disease and all chronic illnesses, as I know firsthand the struggles of living with chronic illness. Through The Self Health Line, I aim to create products that bring comfort, representation, and a bit of humor to others navigating similar challenges.
Thank you for supporting a small business with a heartfelt mission. Together, we can spread awareness, foster connection, and inspire resilience.
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🩵About Me (Long Version)🩵
When I was six, I went to the doctor for an entirely different injury when the physician paused, looking at my face with concern. One side wasn’t moving. Bell’s Palsy, they said, a temporary paralysis of the facial nerves. They ran a few tests, and that’s when they told us: It was Lyme disease. They gave me a short course of antibiotics and sent me home. No one warned us that the bacteria could linger, that it could evade treatment, burrow into my body, and lie dormant for years before striking again.
At first, everything seemed fine. I went back to being a kid. But my mom noticed things—joint pain, unrelenting fatigue, strange neurological issues that didn’t make sense. She questioned the doctors, asking if it could be Lyme. No one believed her, chronic Lyme was a ‘hoax’ at the time. They shamed her for even asking. Lyme disease doesn’t last forever, they told her. She was paranoid. I was fine.
But I wasn’t fine. When middle school came I really struggled with mental health challenges, but with extreme inconsistency. The intermittent nature didn’t make sense, and the severity was nearly impossible to get through. Reflecting back, it is easy to see how this was Lyme starting to wreak havoc on my body.
At seventeen, I woke up one morning with my elbow swollen with over 30 mL of lymphatic fluid. I couldn’t bend my arm without excruciating pain. Just days earlier, I had been out for a run when, suddenly, I lost my vision. It only lasted for a few moments, not more than a couple minutes but it was terrifying. I didn’t know what was happening, so I ignored it. But when my elbow swelled up days later, and a few days before i was to attend an intensive swim camp at West Point army academy, I started to wonder if something was seriously wrong.
I was given antibiotics and the doctor was smart to run Lyme tests again, due to my history. But even though I did test positive, our current western blot tests have an accuracy rate hardly above chance. When I went to see an infectious doctor about my persisting conditions, my mom and I were gaslit. I was told to alter my life style and give up my sports. I was all but pretty much told it was in my head and that it was just something I had to deal with even if it wasn’t. I always wondered if this doctor would have treated a highly competitive national ranking male athlete the same way…but i digress.
At twenty-one, my body gave up. Random things started to happen, bought of psychosis, extreme emotional sensitivity, social anxiety so bad, I would have panic attacks if I tried to enter the dining hall. What finally set up the alarm bell for my mom was when I had an emergent root canal from a tooth that got infected from within (yes, Lyme bacteria can burrow into your bone and infect your teeth internally). After this, I was put on intense antibiotics where I experienced such an extreme herxeimer reaction that it sent me into the deepest depression I had been through yet (which is a…significant thing to say for a person who was diagnosed with MDD).
My mom had some suspicions about this being lingering Lyme, but I honestly brushed away the idea. How would something so small, have such a large and resounding impact on my life?
That spring, things started to decline further. I thought I was starting to feel better, but I was wrong. My fatigue was so severe that even getting out of bed to use the bathroom felt difficult. I lost the ability to have energy to sit upright long enough to eat. I stopped eating because I didn’t have the energy to make food or eat it. Food entirely sometimes repulsed me and I would feel lightheaded thinking about it. I lost 20 pounds unintentionally. Further, I stopped drinking enough water because walking to the sink to fill up my water was too much. I was so paranoid that I would only leave my dorm if I looked outside first and saw no one else was around. I lost my ability to read without my vision blurring and my eyesight giving up on me. I couldn’t pay attention in class because my internalized hyperactivity was so loud; it was like 100 people yelling different things at me once and it never stopped. I lost the ability to enjoy music, one of my main coping mechanisms, and soon after, started having memory issues. Some of my professors were understanding, but others weren’t. They assumed I was lazy, that I was making excuses.
I had no way of explaining what was happening to me because I didn’t even understand it myself.
By that summer, I had given up hope.
I had struggled with suicidal ideation before, but this was different. This time, I had tried everything. Years of therapy, careful eating, exercise, journaling, tracking every single thing I did in a day, **searching for any tiny detail that could help me feel better—**and nothing worked. Every second of being alive took more energy than I had. I didn’t want to die, but I didn’t know how to keep living. I had already made a plan to end my life if things didn’t change.
As a last-ditch effort, I went to Envita Medical Center in Arizona, a holistic treatment facility that specializes in chronic Lyme/ co-infections and cancer They ran extensive tests, and the results were staggering.
I had IGG and IGM for many different bands of Lyme . But it wasn’t just Lyme. It was also Bartonella, a co-infection, had been wreaking havoc on my nervous system, but it had only been found the third time I did extensive testing. My immune system was in complete collapse attacking itself to the point where i was a 21 year old with rheumatoid arthritis factors. I had extremely high levels of BPA and mold toxicity, which were contributing to my fatigue and neurological decline. My body had been fighting a war I didn’t even know was happening.
During the treatment, I had a permacath surgically placed in my chest and began daily IV antibiotics. The treatment was brutal. Five days a week, for eight weeks, I sat through infusions that made me feel like my body was disintegrating from the inside out. But I held on, telling myself that if this didn’t work, then at least I had tried.
And then—slowly—I started to come back to life.
When I returned home, I was stronger. But just as I was beginning to adjust, I caught pneumonia. My body shut down again. It was a harsh reminder that even though I had improved, this wasn’t something that would ever truly go away. Chronic illness doesn’t just disappear. I would always have to work to maintain my health.
I started The Self Health Line because I know what it feels like to be invisible. To suffer in silence. To have people doubt your experience because they can’t see it.I create designs that bring comfort, foster connection, and spread awareness. A little humor helps too—because sometimes, that’s all we have left.
I try to make products for as many chronic illnesses as possible, but if there’s something missing, please send me a custom request. I want everyone in this community to feel seen.
Thank you for being here. Thank you for supporting a small business with a mission. And most of all, thank you for believing in the power of awareness.
I hope you love my designs and stay tuned as I am currently in the process of creating a nonprofit to help better support people with chronic health conditions.
With Love,
Anastasia
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