You Don't Want to Be Sick Like Me

TJ Nelson, noted high-producer, now entrepreneur because a tick took so much away from his life and left him with long-term Lyme, shares his musical insights. This is one way he stays on top of the struggle. In our journeys, we need to express and heal ourselves through any means we can: writing, singing, drawing, whatever will release the pain!

In TJ’s words

December I was doing pretty good and thought I was beating Lyme. Then I tried LDI and going off antibiotics, caught the flu, and crashed hard.

I wrote this song because I wanted to try accepting and moving through the experience rather than resisting it.

The worst symptoms were brain fog, exhaustion, stomach issues, depression, and inability to exercise.

The brain fog made it so that I forgot stuff really easily and had a hard time focusing on anything. It’s a really weird experience. The best I can describe it is when you catch a flu and your head is messed up to where all you can do is watch pointless dog videos on YouTube all day.

The exhaustion is like when you have the flu and you have zero energy, except you have it every single day so you somehow learn how to compartmentalize it mentally and do things when it’s hard to just move around. Many days I would just lay down on the floor for hours just chilling there. I have no idea why the floor was more appealing than the bed.

Stomach issues just make it really hard to eat anything and if you mess up once, welcome to three days of pain. For me, no gluten, dairy, sugar, corn, or rice. No taco Tuesdays over here. I home cook everything so I can’t go out and eat at a restaurant socially with friends.

Depression is a bit interesting because I used to have it and I beat it naturally by correcting deficiencies. Lyme depression is a different beast, it’s more of an almost hallucinating out of this world type of depression that gets so deep that you are forced to become your best friend.

Inability to exercise is annoying because that’s what always made me feel good. I’d just go lift weights and the rest of the day was awesome. If I try to lift weights now I’ll be destroyed for 5 days. I limit it to 30-45 minute walk every day.

“I Took Some Antibiotics…

“I keep it really positive and humorous to kick ass through the day, but sometimes you gotta just feel through it.

“January, I came down pretty hard and took Mike Posner’s ‘I Took a Pill in Ibiza’ and changed it to my own lyrics.

I could probably use voice lessons but you only live once.”