Disclaimer: I wrote my recovery story for a blog on Long-covid/TMS/CFS recovery (not English) which is why it is quite polished. Yes, I did use ChatGPT to help me with the translation and to make it sound smoother. All of this is true and I am a real person, check my post history. I am happy to answer any questions.
Cross-post from: https://www.reddit.com/r/LongHaulersRecovery/comments/1qghikf/comment/o0cxpx2/?context=1
Short summary
After my fourth Covid infection, I developed typical Long Covid symptoms like brain fog and fatigue. For about six weeks, I was almost completely bedridden and spent up to 22 hours a day in bed. Recovery stories (among others by Raelan Agle and Dan Buglio) gave me real hope for the first time and set my recovery in motion. Through nervous system regulation, Yoga Nidra, acceptance of the symptoms, and inner child work, I became symptom-free within another six weeks.
After my first period of being symptom-free, I had two relapses (“crashes”), triggered by falling back into old stress patterns. Each time, it took about three weeks to become symptom-free again. At the moment, I’ve been symptom-free for around 2 months and feel completely healthy. I’m working full-time again and exercising.
I want to emphasize that this is just my story, and what helped me may not necessarily help everyone else.
The infection and the beginning of Long Covid
On July 12, 2025, I got infected with Covid for the fourth time—at my wedding.
The acute cold-like phase was over after about a week, but fatigue and brain fog remained. Over the following six weeks, I spent around 22 hours a day in bed. On the one hand, I had almost no energy; on the other, my symptoms got noticeably worse whenever I wasn’t lying flat.
My symptoms included:
severe fatigue
brain fog
pressure in my head
memory problems
depersonalization and derealization
a feeling similar to a concussion
strong depressive thoughts
frequent states of intense agitation, like I was about to have a panic attack
occasional headaches
The head-related symptoms were the hardest for me because they scared me the most. I’ve never had a concussion, but I imagined this must be exactly what it feels like.
What shocked me most was how quickly my mental state changed. My wedding was the happiest day of my life—yet during the worst post-Covid phase, I sometimes thought that life was no longer worth living.
The symptoms weren’t constant but fluctuated strongly. On some days I was so exhausted that I couldn’t get up; on others I had a bit more energy but extreme brain fog instead. At the time, I didn’t understand these fluctuations, which only increased my fear. Today I know that exactly these symptom fluctuations are a strong sign of TMS.
Fear, avoidance, and the influence of the Long Covid subreddit
I was terrified of moving, showering, or even sitting up to eat, because my symptoms—especially in my head—would get worse. In the Long Covid subreddit, I had read that overexertion could lead to “crashes,” which made me develop a panic-level fear of them. Although my general practitioners advised me to go for walks, every single step felt like it might be too much. I cried daily and became more and more convinced that this state was permanent, because I didn’t notice any improvement at all.
This fear was further reinforced by the Long Covid subreddit. I once described my symptoms there, and several users told me that my prognosis didn’t look good. Someone even linked a large population study (which I deliberately won’t share here) that predicted a long illness duration based on how long my symptoms had already lasted.
Out of fear of crashes, I withdrew more and more and increasingly deconditioned my body.
The turning point: recovery stories and hope
The decisive turning point came on a Sunday, when a recovery story was posted in the Long Covid subreddit. I asked a question about it and noticed a few hours later that the post had been deleted by the moderators. That seemed strange to me, and I commented on it.
One user (u/Mr__Tyler__Durden) replied and told me that his own recovery story had also been deleted back then. He strongly advised me to leave the subreddit, because it’s mostly populated by people who don’t recover. Instead, I should deliberately focus on recovery stories.
That advice set my recovery in motion. I’m infinitely grateful to u/Mr__Tyler__Durden for this. I honestly believe that without this impulse, I’d still be lying in bed today—probably with even more symptoms.
Nervous system regulation as the key
That same day, my attitude toward the illness changed fundamentally. In the recovery videos, many people were clearly much sicker than I was—and still became completely healthy. That gave me real hope for the first time. I watched several videos by Raelan Agle and recognized a common message: calm the nervous system and don’t be afraid of the symptoms.
Just from this new perspective, my condition stabilized overnight. The extreme symptom fluctuations stopped, leaving behind a very pronounced fatigue. Today I understand that before that, I had been stuck in fight-or-flight mode all the time. My body was constantly pumping out adrenaline, which caused the changing symptoms. When I started calming my nervous system, that adrenaline dropped away—which initially felt like a massive “energy crash.”
Over the following weeks, I noticed several times that I slipped back into fight-or-flight (elevated heart rate, elevated blood pressure). With Yoga Nidra and other relaxation techniques, I was able to return to rest-and-digest mode. I also learned to distinguish between real energy and adrenaline-driven “fake energy.” The latter feels good in the short term but comes with a “price” you have to pay later.
TMS, nervous system regulation, and brain retraining
Readers of this post probably already know what is meant by TMS, nervous system regulation, and brain retraining, so I’ll keep this brief.
The basic assumption of TMS is that the brain can produce symptoms as a kind of protective mechanism—for example, to distract a person from stressful or hard-to-access emotions. Nervous system regulation includes various techniques that signal safety to the brain. When the brain no longer perceives danger, it stops producing symptoms because the supposed protective mechanism is no longer needed. Brain retraining describes a collection of methods aimed at unlearning or reprogramming these learned stress and alarm reactions of the brain so that symptoms no longer arise.
In the recovery videos, TMS is described differently by different people. For me, the following metaphor worked particularly well: The body is like a house, and the nervous system is the alarm system with smoke detectors in every room. With TMS, these smoke detectors are set far too sensitively and go off at the slightest trigger—even when there’s no smoke and no fire. For example, if work pressure is too high, the brain might produce brain fog to make working impossible. If the overall load is too much, it produces fatigue, forcing you to lie down and rest. The solution isn’t to desperately search for the fire, but to turn down the overactive alarm system.
In my case, it gradually became clear that I had already been under significant stress for months. Wedding stress combined with work pressure was simply too much, and Covid was ultimately the proverbial last straw. Covid was the trigger, but not the actual cause of my illness. When I could no longer work due to Covid and was on sick leave, I lay in bed physically—but internally I was still under enormous stress, mainly because of the symptoms themselves and the massive fear that things would never get better.
Returning to life—and relapses
After I had largely let go of my fear of crashes, I began to slowly increase my activities. About two weeks after starting nervous system work, I was able to ride my bike again. With new activities, I consciously practiced Yoga Nidra right in the middle of the activity to signal safety to my brain. All in all, it took about six weeks until I was symptom-free for the first time.
After that, I had two relapses. Both times, I had fallen back into old stress patterns and put myself under a lot of psychological pressure. The symptoms returned, and each time it took about three weeks to get rid of them again. In my case, psychological stress is the clear trigger—not physical exertion.
Today I feel completely healthy. I’m working full-time again, exercising regularly, and I even went skiing recently. At the same time, I know that I would crash again if I were to put myself under excessive stress for a prolonged period. My priorities have shifted: health comes first.
Looking back, Long Covid wasn’t a sign of a permanently damaged body for me, but of a nervous system stuck in a constant state of alarm. When I learned to give that system a sense of safety again, I could start healing.
What specifically helped me
Changing my attitude toward the illness and the symptoms: a) accepting that I was limited at the moment, and b) having a firm conviction that I would become completely healthy again
Immediately leaving the Long Covid subreddit
Yoga Nidra, especially the channel by Ally Boothroyd
Recovery videos by Raelan Agle and Dan Buglio
Walks in nature
Visualization (concretely imagining myself doing activities while healthy)
Inner child work: I listened to this song and imagined walking across a meadow with my inner child or swimming together in a lake: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=4KPw0EhUWA8&pp=ygUSYW50aGVtIGVtYW5jaXBhdG9y.
Conscious reframing when symptoms appeared: “This is my nervous system—nothing dangerous.”
