Rising Stars: Meet Kelsey Flint

Today we’d like to introduce you to Kelsey Flint.

Hi Kelsey, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
In April 2017, my world as I knew it changed forever. I know this is a very cliché way to start a story, but it is true. I see things now as someone with almost a different set of eyes or brain. I wish I could go back and hug my 20-year-old self and tell myself that everything would be okay.

Because it would be. Sure, this journey of doctors, hospitals, tests, crying in the bathroom at two in the morning was an absolute living horror movie. I love scary movies. In most horror movies, there’s the killing spree, a calculated plot, and follows up on a bad sequel to continue the murder legacy on a targeted sorority or something.

But real life doesn’t work like that. Life is messy, hard, and pushes us to our limits sometimes. It isn’t this calculated plot or sunshine and rainbows all the time. Chronic illness can be a hundred of your bad days all bunched in one. We wake up, rinse, repeat the next day.

In January of 2017, I was coming back from a cruise and had a bad bout of the flu. We flew from Miami to New York, New York to Detroit. I was so stuffed up and felt so much pressure around my head. Upon descending, I have awoken to the most excruciating pain in both of my ears at each descent the pilot made lower to land. It felt as if someone inserted a sharp object in both of my ears and pressed them through my eardrum, twisting and turning.

Pressure filled my head and I felt as if my ears were going to explode. I covered my hands over my ears pleading for it to stop. Once we finally landed, my ears rang so loud and felt sore. I only had 40 minutes until the next takeoff. I sat and took deep breaths and tried to tell myself it probably was just an ear infection or something. On the next plane, it happened again. Just as painful, just as unrelenting.

One spring afternoon in 2017, I was talking on the phone with my brother. Pacing around my house, I sat down on the edge of my bed and placed my phone on speaker. I stretched and fell back onto my bed laughing at something he had just said. As I sat back up, a whoosh of vertigo came up from my feet all the way to the top of my head. Beads of sweat lined my forehead. I blinked hard, twice and grounded my feet on the floor. A veil of darkness started to cover my eyes, and as I opened them, my voice echoed for my partner to help.

Did I just pass out? I started to feel panic rising up my throat. My body instantly grew weak and with each step, my legs Jell-O. Each leg forward felt as if I was walking on a trampoline. Whoosh. Another spin. Nausea and more panic started to erupt out of me. I could not understand what was happening. I have never felt such intense feelings and sensations all at once. Something was seriously wrong with me. I grabbed my bag and went to the hospital.

8 hours at the hospital and all tests were coming back normal. My blood pressure was sitting at a consistent 92/60, heart rate was elevated but everything else was normal. How could this be? The doctor assigned to me stated they were sure that I was just severely dehydrated and suffered from an anxiety attack. “It happens all the time,” he said. “College students get overwhelmed and overworked. Go home and get some rest. Follow up with a therapist”. They let me finish my second IV bag and discharged me that night. Luckily for me, I did not get another episode for a couple of months. When it did hit again, it never went away.

Every day after this episode I felt as if I was in a dream. I felt like I was always behind a pane of glass, watching life go by while I was chronically hyper-aware but disoriented. I felt like I was watching my life through the eyes of an alien, or trapped in someone else’s body. Like I was inhabiting my body and not actually living my days out as my own. Sleep and food were my only escape. I was lucky because each day would bring such high-stress responses from my body so I would be incredibly exhausted anyway so, getting to sleep was not very difficult. Every conversation, moment, and event was painful to be present in. People would talk and it would echo and fade out to almost nothing, and then I would snap back and be present again.

I would look in a mirror and not recognize the face staring back at me. It looked altered, distorted. My eyes showed me a different world, everything being disoriented as if I were in a foggy dream. Faces, conversations, and things just said were forgotten almost immediately after seeing or doing it. I constantly felt out of breath, fatigued, and adrenaline surged through my body for no reason constantly. I finally got a diagnosis from a cardiologist after a fasting tilt table test and a stress test showed my blood pressure on tilt was 60/40 and my pulse was 135 bpm. On tilt, I had cold sweats, fatigued, spotty vision, body felt limp and weak, cold extremities, and adrenaline rushes. This resulted in a diagnosis of POTS, or postural orthostatic hypotension.

Several years later, I have found solace in my treatment plan. I begged almost daily for God to take me, or to give me a diagnosis of something that you can put a finger on like MS or cancer (horrible I know), or something that makes sense to medical professionals. So many doctors told me I was a stressed twenty-something, had severe panic disorder, depression, “it’s just anxiety”, etc. and made me question my sanity.

I spent most of my early days talking to the four walls in my apartment, watching life pass me by. I lost people and friends close to me. I want to thank those in my support group, social media, and those that stuck around for making me feel less alone. From Facebook groups with thousands of brave souls of strong individuals all fighting the good fight.

If you would have asked me in 2017 if I would have imagined myself coming out on the other side of this, I would have confidently told you “no”. And to those that impacted my life throughout this journey, thank YOU.

I will never stop advocating for those that may be bedridden, housebound, and afraid of what this new world and “new normal” may be; just because it is invisible, does not make us less important. I have found my passion for speaking out and advocating for those with invisible disabilities, like myself, to empower us to not only fight the stigma but to hear OUR voice.

Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
Absolutely not. This may be a bit triggering but I was suicidal.

I contemplated death and a way to escape the suffering and pain I felt on a daily basis. Living felt excruciatingly painful. No one around me understood, my conveyer belt medical team was all stumped and made me feel like I was the problem. I did not find comfort in anyone but my family and partner.

I couldn’t work, I couldn’t drive. I could barely make it through college. It was really tough to navigate.

Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I have been working for Apple remotely as a Senior Advisor for iOS. This basically means I do tech support, work for account security, and am a professional de-escalator. HA! But really, though. You have to be good at listening and building rapport with strangers over the phone. We are all human!

I am actually in graduate school pursuing my license to practice therapy and ultimately I want to be a social scientist. I am pursuing a degree in Clinical Psychology and neuroscience. I want to study dissociation and derealization along with inner ear disorders… which is what had caused all of my symptoms to begin.

I still have quite a few more years left!

Can you share something surprising about yourself?
That I have a chronic illness! When I share my story everyone that I have met that did not know was so shocked. They then tell me how proud of me they are or how I am an inspiration, etc.

Do you know what is funny? I don’t feel like an inspiration. I just know how it feels to be so isolated and so alone in your own head thinking you may never get out of the rut you are in. And I encourage people from social media, etc. To call, text, video chat, meet up in person, so they don’t ever have to feel the way that I did.

Encourage people to be open, be vulnerable, ask for help. I believe you and you are so valid.

Contact Info:

• Email: flint.kelsey@gmail.com
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/peanutbutterkelsey
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/kelsey.flint.7
• Youtube: www.youtube.com/channel/UCK4nXmOlda-qv-66Tq4IU7A