When My Body Stopped Negotiating: The Rock Bottoms I Couldn't Outrun

For years, I told myself the snoring was just stress. The choking at night was just acid reflux. The bone-deep exhaustion was just corporate life.

I was 33 when a sleep study finally told me the truth: severe obstructive sleep apnea. My husband had been watching me stop breathing in my sleep for months.

This is the story of how I got there.

Chapter 1 of Notes From My Health Journey — a series on what my body tried to tell me, and what I finally started hearing.

The body I grew up in

My body has been too familiar with the roller coaster of weight gain and weight loss — the highs, the lows, and the quiet frustration of seeing progress slip away. Stress, health conditions, and failed relationships kept pulling me back.

When I was in tenth grade, I was diagnosed with hypothyroidism, which had caused the alarming increase in my weight for the very first time.

The awkward growing-up phase was truly awkward, and I never felt comfortable in my own skin. I felt tired, weird, constantly comparing my body with others and wishing it were different for me. I sought validation through relationships, to feel loved, to be told that my body was okay, regardless of the fat that had collected near my stomach area, or for the bulgy neck that I still hate. My mother kept referring to other girls from our apartment who were so stylish and slim. My maternal uncle teased me with the nickname 'gaaye' (cow). It was a period of heightened self-awareness about how my body felt and looked, and the crash on my confidence was too loud for me to ignore.

In 2017, when I moved to Bangalore for another job, I had access to a free office gym and met a colleague who was also facing similar body weight issues like me. We made a pact and became gym buddies. In 18 months, I lost 15 kgs, gained strength, but developed a lot of health issues along the way. I had no idea about any sort of nutrition, what to eat more of, or what not to eat. It was my second time away from home, and this was meant to be a permanent shift. At home, my mom prioritised high-fibre food more, because of which I never had digestive issues. In Bangalore, I mostly ate the shitty, unhygienic paying guest (PG) accommodation food throughout the week.

By 2018, I had left that job, moved to a different part of the city, stayed in a rental apartment and started cooking my own food. This resolved some health issues, such as vitamin deficiencies, frequent diarrhoea, food poisoning, and eye redness.

The damage to my gut was already done. I just didn’t know it yet.

After joining the new company, I lost access to a free gym, and by the time I adjusted to my office timings, I had already gained back seven kgs in a year. As compensation, I started jogging in the early hours. I couldn't make time in the evening anymore (which is what I did earlier to work out) due to evening calls. This helped me maintain my weight for two more years after the seven-kgs increase.

In 2019, I went through an emergency appendicitis surgery, which made me shed a few kgs, but it also brought with it extreme bloating issues for more than six years!

By 2020, I had moved to another nicer rental apartment, and with that came my first-ever convection oven. I started baking a lot of items, and I experimented with my cooking style. In the process, I never realised how much food I was mindlessly consuming. The jogging stopped, and my food intake increased. My weight returned to its previous pre-gym number.

Looking back, that oven was the beginning of a quiet unravelling I didn't recognise as one. When COVID hit a few months later, the unravelling had a name.

COVID, gut collapse, and the relationship that ended without ending

When COVID hit, I was stuck in my apartment, and I found complete solace in food. With that came severe gut health issues. I couldn't hold any food longer than necessary. I would go to the loo 4-5 times a day. I cried in silence. I cursed everything. I blamed my surgery. I blamed the foods I was eating. More so, I blamed myself. I hated the way my body felt and looked.

I tried everything — eliminating dairy, switching to millets, consulting multiple dieticians. Nothing worked. It was humiliating and depressing.

In 2021, my long-time boyfriend married someone else.

Without breaking up with me.

I hit rock bottom.

I was diagnosed with mild depression at that time and was on SSRIs for three months.

I've written before about the inherited patterns that kept me in relationships like this one longer than I should have stayed. The body, I've come to believe, keeps that score too.

Little did I know that I was about to hit another rock bottom in 2024.

Age 33: when my body finally forced me to listen

I met the love of my life in June of 2022 when I had completely given up hope on finding someone stable and genuine. My guy (now my husband) is a huge foodie. He loves fried foods, Indian street food, and whatever I cook. I, of course, didn't mind because I had found my true love who loved me the way I was. My weight and my self-esteem increased slowly and steadily.

We tied the knot in Feb 2024. However, the preparation for the marriage and the cost we incurred took a huge toll on my health. He started observing me snoring louder than before, sometimes choking up. Almost every other night, I would start coughing violently to the point of vomiting. My colleagues kept saying I looked tired. The entire day, I felt sleepy. I started doing some random workouts at home because I knew exercising would help me gain more energy. But it didn't help.

I started losing my memories, couldn't focus on work, and all I wanted to do was sleep. My gut health was fried by this time. My periods started becoming irregular. I started accepting this as my reality.

I finally went to a neurologist because I was scared to screw up my work. He gave me an MRI test and a polysomnography test. The MRI came back normal.
But the sleep study revealed severe obstructive sleep apnea. I was referred to a pulmonologist who put me on a BiPAP machine indefinitely till I lost weight. This was Aug of 2024. I was 33 years old.

That was my second rock bottom — and the first time I stopped negotiating with my body.

In Chapter 2, I'll tell you what I tried, what failed, and the one shift that finally started working.

Thanks for reading. See you in the margins.

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Filed under: The Body Keeps the Score

Part of the Notes From My Health Journey series. View all chapters →