Recovery Was More Than Remission

We are delighted to have Emma Toms, an experienced and insightful wellness coach blogging for us this month about her recovery from chronic illness. To learn more about Emma's story and work, visit her website.

Recovery Was More Than Remission

I was seventeen when my body first began to react.

I didn't understand it all then. All I knew was that my eye had become painful, red and sensitive to light. I was eventually diagnosed with autoimmune uveitis, an inflammatory disease where my own immune system was attacking my eyes. It was frightening, I was young, trying to make sense of adulthood, and suddenly I was living with words I had never expected to hear, autoimmune disease, inflammation, chronic illness.

Like many people, I accepted what I was told. "Your body is attacking itself."

It became part of my identity almost overnight.

Over the years, more diagnoses followed. Sarcoidosis. Supraventricular tachycardia (SVT). Then, in my early forties, after years of chronic stress that I had normalised, Graves' disease.

By then I had spent over a decade working in the NHS. I loved my job, caring for people came naturally to me. I was organised, capable and dependable. I was the person who coped, carried on and definitely the  person who rarely asked for help.

Looking back now, I can see what I couldn't see then. My life wasn't just busy, my nervous system had been living in survival for years.

I didn't know the language of hypervigilance. I didn't understand what chronic stress was doing inside my body. I thought anxiety was part of my personality, exhaustion was simply the price you paid for working hard and looking after everyone else.

My body knew differently and when Graves' disease arrived it was like a storm.

My heart raced while I sat still, my hands trembled, sleep disappeared. My thoughts raced faster than I could catch them, I lost weight despite eating and  couldn't tolerate heat. I was frightened by what was happening to me and, perhaps more painfully, frightened that this was now my life and what looked like my future.

The medical care I received mattered enormously. Medication helped save my life, the endocrinologist brought my thyroid back under control and eventually I got into remission with the help of a lot of slowing down, self-awareness and lifestyle changes

I thought that would be the end of the story but instead, it became the beginning of a different one.

Although my blood tests improved, I didn't suddenly feel well. The inflammation had settled, but my body still behaved as though danger was everywhere.

I still startled easily, struggled to relax, felt anxious. I was constantly scanning for signs that something else might go wrong. I had reached remission, but I hadn't yet fully recovered. I looked fine to everyone else but I still felt terrible.

I began searching for answers that stretched beyond my diagnosis because I instinctively felt there was another piece of the puzzle.

Emma knew there were pieces missing to her health puzzle

I immersed myself in deeper lifestyle medicine, found reading on psychoneuroimmunology and the growing body of research exploring the relationship between chronic stress, the nervous system and long-term health. I began to understand that while a diagnosis explains what is happening, it doesn't always explain why our bodies become vulnerable in the first place.

I started asking different questions. Instead of How do I treat my illness? I started to think about my history and how it may be affecting me now and began to ask What has my body been carrying?

As I looked back over my own life, patterns began to emerge. Years of responsibility, perfectionism, always putting everyone else first, never truly feeling able to stop.

The more I learned, the more I realised how much I had pushed myself and how that had affected me.

That understanding led me to Integral Eye Movement Techniques (IEMT).

For the first time, I experienced an approach that helped me process emotional memories in a way that talking alone never had. Memories that had quietly shaped how I saw myself and the world began to lose their emotional intensity. The past no longer felt as though it was happening in the present.

Later, I also discovered the Safe and Sound Protocol (SSP).

If IEMT helped resolve emotional memories, SSP helped my nervous system experience safety again. Slowly, and gently, my body began learning that it no longer needed to remain permanently switched on and finally these changes were felt and they were sustainable.

Alongside this, I embraced all the things I had learned over the years too and added some more. Somatic practices, walking in nature, journalling, restorative rest, yoga nidra and learning to listen to my body rather than constantly overriding it.

Mindbody practices helped Emma reconnect with her body

Recovery now was more about building health for the long term.

I had to make some radical changes but these felt easier now, there were hundreds of small decisions made every single day.

Learning to rest without guilt, boundaries were radical self care, realising my worth wasn't measured by productivity.

Today, I remain in remission, something I never take for granted. I still pay attention to stress, prioritise sleep, movement and connection. I still use the practices that helped me recover because they are no longer treatments; they are simply how I live.

My experience changed not only my health but the direction of my life.

After many years working within the NHS, I trained as a  practitioner of Integral Eye Movement Techniques  (IEMT) and a certified provider of the Safe and Sound Protocol (SSP) alongside all my other training. Every day I now work alongside people living with chronic stress, anxiety, trauma and long-term health conditions, supporting them to understand their nervous systems and rediscover a sense of safety within themselves.

I do this because I remember what it felt like to believe that remission should have been enough. Recovery taught me something medicine couldn't, that our bodies are not simply collections of symptoms to manage: they are stories waiting to be heard.

If there is one thing I hope people take from my journey, it is this.

You can approach your diagnosis with curiosity. Your symptoms deserve your attention and your understanding. But you don’t have to accept the prognosis you may have been given. I am certainly proof of that as are many others. Don't let it become the limit of what you believe is possible.

Recovery is about more than the absence of disease. It is about rebuilding trust in your body, reconnecting with yourself and discovering that even after years of survival, healing remains possible.

I know, because I have lived it.

Emma Toms, integrated wellness coach