Free Dying to Be Me by Anita Moorjani

so was I. I felt victorious, as though I’d finally made the breakthrough, and I was anxious to go back home and reunite with Danny. I’d missed him terribly and had so much to share with him.
    When I returned home to Hong Kong, at first many people remarked on how well I looked. I certainly felt better than I had in a long time, both physically and emotionally, but my jubilation was short-lived. It wasn’t long before others wanted to know what I’d been doing for so long in India and how I’d healed. When I told them about my ayurvedic regimen, however, I received mainly fear-based and negative responses. These were well-meaning people who genuinely cared about me and my well-being, and they were skeptical about my choices, which is why they had such a great impact on me. Most believed that cancer couldn’t be treated in that way, and I slowly felt the doubts and fear creeping back into my psyche as I defended my position.
    In hindsight, when that began to happen, I should have gone back to India to regain my health again. Instead, I actually started to be influenced by the skepticism I was facing over my choice of treatment, so I remained in Hong Kong.
    I attempted to understand Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), since it’s commonly practiced here. However, because it conflicted so much with ayurveda, I was left feeling very confused. In ayurveda, you’re encouraged to be vegetarian; whereas in TCM, you’re encouraged to consume meat, particularly pork. In the Indian system, meats such as pork and beef are the worst things you can eat.
    To make matters worse, I turned to Western naturopathy for help because I was so bewildered. This not only added to the confusion, but also increased my fears. I was getting conflicting messages from every discipline. In Western naturopathic systems, sugar and dairy are considered absolute no-nos—in fact, they’re seen as foods that feed the growth of cancer cells. According to the systems I was researching, sugar feeds the mutated cells. In ayurveda, on the other hand, dairy is a must; and sugar and sweet foods are required as part of a balanced diet, based on balancing all the different taste buds.
    So I became very stressed about food and was afraid of eating almost anything. I didn’t know what was good for me and what wasn’t, because each system of healing espoused a different truth, and they all conflicted with each other. This confusion only added to my already overwhelming fears. And as the terror tightly gripped me in its vice once more, I watched helplessly as my health rapidly deteriorated.
    I FELT THE NEED TO BE ALONE MOST OF THE TIME and only let those closest to me into my life. I wanted to shut out reality in an attempt to shut out the truth. I couldn’t bear how people looked at me and treated me. As my health declined, I didn’t like the way others felt sorry for me and made allowances for me, as though I were different or not normal. I also felt very uncomfortable about the way those from my culture thought it was my karma—that I must have done something in a previous life to warrant this punishment. Because I, too, believed in karma, it made me feel as though I had done something to be ashamed of in order to deserve this. It seemed as if I were being judged, and it also made me feel helpless.
    If this is retribution for something I did in a previous life, I wondered, how can I change it? What can I possibly do about it now? Thoughts like this would leave me feeling completely hopeless about my situation.
    But through all this, I put up a front. I laughed and smiled and made small talk, even when I didn’t want to, because it was important to me not to cause concern or worry anyone else with my condition. I didn’t want others to feel upset or uncomfortable because of my situation, so I continued to put the feelings and needs of everyone else before my own. So many people remarked on how “brave” I was, and how they admired the way I was dealing