My Journey
I got diagnosed with seropositive rheumatoid arthritis in 2022, after having suffered debilitating knee flares, deformation and impairment for more than fifteen years which has been misdiagnosed as Osteoarthritis (OA) (many indigenous cultures consider these arthritis one disease, and there is good reason to that, as more and more research is emerging on the immunological nature of osteoarthritis [1]). I have been without disease activity for two years now (mid 2026). With an RF at 80 and ACPA at 125 at diagnosis, seropositive RA is very unlikely to become silent on its own. Thus, let me retrace what I did to get into remission naturally.
But first, let me tell you a bit more about the course of my disease. My knees first flared after I had to testify in court against my mother’s husband and father of my siblings after he had strangled her following fifteen years of domestic violence, where I had to smile and not just act like I would like the perpetrator but actually had to start liking him in some strange way in order to survive, and severe parentification (cultural factors and implications
without which my disease would not have developed: patriarchy, individualism/nuclear family, capitalistic materialism; for further exploration, pls check my ig and my upcoming book). In the years coming, and mostly living abroad, my knees would flare only when I came back to Austria and around my family of origin.
Then after a failed relationship that I came out of further traumatized and a single-mother (colonial trauma, capitalistic pressure and patriarchy), thrown back into my family of origin, my seven-years old daughter’s school principal and teacher were racially abusing her. That was the last drop for immune system to bring on full body rheumatoid arthritis (racism, patriarchy (I know if I had had a man, they wouldn’t have dared to deal with us so). One morning during that time, I woke up with several of my fingers swollen and hurting, as well as toes and my hips. The school was stressing us already, and from that now I got the next issue of taking unpredictable long times to get dressed, because I could not move my fingers and leg.
In the year that followed I devoured every book out there touching on the connection between autoimmunity and childhood trauma that I could get my hands on and dug up hundreds of research papers further explaining and illuminating the biological connections between complex trauma and autoimmunity, as well as research on natural and plant medicines that treat rheumatoid arthritis and “mental health” conditions.
Over the timespan of two years, I was in and out of excruciating pain and impairment. Being alone with two young children, I found myself unable to open jars, slice bread or cut vegetables, wipe my butt, get dressed. The prognosis of the rheumatologists who all agreed that with the kind of aggressive form of autoimmune arthritis, immediate and lifelong medication with biologics were necessary to prevent getting crippled and organ damage came as another huge shock, almost traumatizing in itself. Having been raised to avoid pharmaceutical medications from childhood and never having taken any serious medications, other than antibiotics twice in 41 years, having birthed my children without pain killers, I wasn’t ready to take that journey yet. Plus, my children are Jamaican-Austrian, and we have always spent part of the year in Jamaica, where their father lives, and I knew that if I was on these strong medications with possibly very serious side effects, I wouldn’t be able to continue this life we had built. By then, it had also become clear that my disease activity was high in Austria and minimal in Jamaica. For the previous years, I had needed wheelchair assistance to fly into Jamaica from Austria, only to be walking well a few days into landing. So, because I really had no choice, I dedicated every free minute of the coming two years to researching, testing and experimenting on cultural perspectives, techniques, statistics, studies, testimonies, plant and herbal medicines dealing with rheumatoid arthritis (and autoimmunity at large), complex trauma, and energy healing in different cultures. This disease actually brought me back to anthropology, feeling that my recovery lay in restructuring my relations and the need to seek inspirations from cultures other than the one in which I had gotten sick.
Through the extensive research I did and my own experiences with the course of disease activity, it became quite clear that my autoimmune condition and my complex trauma condition were really just one condition. So I started seeing psycho-and trauma therapists. But what I missed with every therapist was that they were working with my psyche and body only, telling me that I needed to cut off my parents and children’s father and “make new friend.” But judging by the reaction of my nervous system, sending me into flares, that was bad advice. And anthropologically speaking, it was naïve. Much of the advice and “treatment” I got was reflective of the individualistic culture that is making many of us sick in the first place. Going through that process, a new approach revealed itself to me and after carefully researching, crafting and applying it to myself, I can offer to others going through relatable situations something different now, complementary to psychotherapy and medical therapy. With the Sankofa Coaching Method℠, I seek to enable people to create and uncover new possibilities of relating that support their wellbeing while changing the culture that makes so many of us sick.
Through applying the principles and methods of inquiry that I now share with others, especially restructuring my relational and cultural world accordingly, I have been without disease activity for two years now. When I realized how far I had come in recovering from rheumatoid arthritis, and that there was both a vast amount of scientific research and felt energetic experiences behind it, I decided to train in trauma-informed coaching to be able to assist others in applying what allowed me to get my life back. Coaching here is a tool to help you integrate and apply the knowledge shared and uncovered together.
If you consider working with me, you might want to know a bit more about my background. I hold a doctoral degree in international law and a master degree in social and cultural anthropology with a specialization in medical and psychological anthropology from the University of Vienna, and am an ICF-certified trauma-informed coach. I spent years in Paris, Jamaica, French-occupied Guiana and Senegal, and conducted research on rheumatoid arthritis and its sociocultural implications in Dakar/Senegal. With my two wonderful daughters, I live in Austria and Jamaica.
[1] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4015466/pdf/nihms433641.pdf