Melinda B.

Davie, FL

Infected: September 1, 2015
Diagnosed: April 17, 2024

My Lyme Story: A Journey of Awakening Through Affliction

I never saw the tick. I never had the bull’s-eye rash. But I knew something had changed. It wasn’t just the spiraling inflammation, the neurological glitches, the bone-deep fatigue, or the thickening fog. It was as if something foreign had entered not just my body, but my soul. Lyme disease didn’t knock. It invaded.

I was living in Northern California between 2011 and 2015, a time of spiritual exploration, conscious eating, and subtle awakenings. But I returned to Florida in 2015 as my father was nearing the end of his life. After his death, my knee swelled significantly. I didn’t have the funds for extensive testing, so I attributed the changes to grief or reintroducing gluten. I minimized. I adapted. I carried on.

“Lyme disease didn’t knock. It invaded.”

– Melinda Bernstein

Like so many women I know, I kept showing up through caregiving, officiating funerals and weddings, holding space for others while ignoring my own quiet decline. I told myself it must have been a bad psychedelic experience in California. I surrendered to that story. But the symptoms worsened.

By late 2023, the world felt like it was unraveling. Israel was invaded on October 7th, and as a Jewish woman and an eclectic rabbi, I felt ancestral trauma rising in my bones. I felt like a fish out of water. A target for hate. I longed for connection and dared to date. But when I spoke truths about my past, my ex-husband retaliated with threats. One night, overcome by pressure and panic, I called 911, thinking I was having a heart attack. I called my son, too. I sobbed and shook uncontrollably, unable to articulate the ache inside me. In desperation, I handed my son my drum and asked him to pound it over my heart to break through what felt like death closing in. Six months later, I received the diagnosis: Lyme.

How Lyme Has Affected My Life

Lyme brought me to my knees. And in some ways, that was the gift. It stripped away what no longer served. It slowed me down enough to hear the whispers of my body… and the Shechinah (the divine feminine) within me. My brain function suffered. My immunity collapsed. My nervous system was fried. I lost time, relationships, even parts of my identity. But I also found something sacred: the fierce truth that my life was calling out to be reclaimed.

There were moments I didn’t think I’d make it. I even planned a way out during the winter of 2024. That’s how deep the despair went. Lyme doesn’t just affect your body; it unearths every unhealed wound, every buried trauma, every energy leak. It asks for everything. And if you’re not careful, it will take it.

What I’ve Learned

Lyme is not just a bacterial infection. It’s a spiritual teacher. A shape-shifter. A revealer. It shows you who believes you, and who doesn’t. Who holds space for your healing, and who gaslights your pain. It forces you to choose yourself in ways you never have before. I’ve learned:

• To stop waiting for external validation of my suffering.
  
• To track subtle shifts in my energy, my environment, and my emotions.
  
• That healing isn’t linear, but it is possible.
  
• That saying no can be the most holy word on the path of recovery.
  

Advice for Others Battling Lyme

If you’re in it right now, if you’re struggling, disbelieved, exhausted, unsure, please hear this:

• You are not crazy. You are not broken. You are not alone.
  
• Trust your instincts. Keep a record. Seek out practitioners who believe you and know how to work with complex illness. Learn your immune system. Know your nervous system. Trust your spiritual system.
  
• And above all: grieve what you’ve lost so you can begin to rebuild.
  

Supports and Treatments That Helped

Healing has required everything:

• Functional medicine doctors who understand vector-borne illness.
  
• Supplements like modified citrus pectin, immunoglobulin therapy, and herbal antimicrobials.
  
• Modalities like BEMER for microcirculation, somatic therapies for trauma, and BrainTap meditations.
  
• Kabbalistic wisdom that reminded me I am more than this body.
  
• Sacred boundaries to protect my energy.
  
• Rest. Rest. And more rest.
  
• Also: grief work, forgiveness, and learning to stop performing strength when I was actually crumbling.
  

What I Wish I Knew at the Beginning

I wish someone had told me that a tick bite could change your life, not just physically, but psychologically. I wish I had known that early treatment is crucial, and that many doctors will miss it. I wish I’d trusted my symptoms sooner. I wish I had believed myself before anyone else did.

But perhaps most of all, I wish I had known that Lyme would also be a threshold into a deeper purpose. That through the wreckage, I would remember who I am. That my voice, my actual voice, would return, carried through psalms, meditations, and the sacred presence I now embody.

A Closing Blessing

May this story reach those who feel invisible and remind them they are held. May truth rise like light through the cracks. And may the soul remember: Healing is holy.