You wake up feeling swollen, like your body doesn’t know how to let go
Your face looks rounder than it ever has.
Your skin holds fluid it never used to.
Sleep doesn’t restore you anymore.
You bruise easily now, without cause.
Healing takes longer than it should.
Your mind feels distant.
You laugh less.
Even your reflection feels foreign.
And beneath it, you sense something has shifted.
But the shift came so quietly, no one believed it at first.
You begin to doubt yourself.
But the symptoms keep adding up.
It begins when cortisol doesn’t know how to turn itself off
Cortisol is meant to protect.
It rises with danger.
It keeps you alert and stable.
But when it stays high, it stops helping.
It starts breaking you down slowly.
It builds fat in your belly, your face, your neck.
It steals from your muscles.
It confuses your sleep patterns.
You become anxious without reason.
You forget things mid-sentence.
You try to rest—but wake up tired.
This isn’t ordinary stress.
It’s something else now.
And it’s growing in silence.
Your body holds fat in places it never did before
Your arms and legs thin without effort.
But your belly grows wide and firm.
Your face puffs.
Your neck thickens visibly.
Your weight climbs quickly, week by week.
And nothing seems to reverse it.
You eat less.
Exercise more.
Still, the swelling continues.
You feel trapped inside something you can’t undo.
And people say it’s just aging.
But deep down, you know it’s not that.
It’s a shift in your chemistry.
Steroid medications can trigger the same internal chaos
Sometimes, it’s not your body alone.
It’s the treatment you trusted.
Steroids for asthma.
For inflammation.
For chronic pain or autoimmune flare.
They help—until they don’t.
They push cortisol higher and higher.
Your body mimics Cushing’s.
But doctors don’t always see it.
The cause looks like the cure.
And you’re left feeling like you’re making it up.
Explaining symptoms to blank stares.
Doubting your own instincts.
Stretch marks deepen into wide, purple trails across the skin
Your skin thins without trauma.
You bruise with no memory of impact.
You bleed easily.
Wounds heal slowly, leaving reminders.
You see your body shift visually and daily.
But no one sees it as a clue.
They tell you to try harder.
To be stronger.
But your skin is already shouting.
And the stretch marks are writing a message no one wants to read.
Each one an echo of internal chaos.
Your mind feels slower, heavier, more reactive than before
You forget where you’re going.
You forget why you walked into the room.
You cry when you didn’t expect to.
You feel rage without a cause.
You feel fragile when you used to feel firm.
Your thoughts feel swollen too.
Like they’re trying to reach you through something thick.
You try to hide it.
Smile through it.
But inside, it’s always there.
A weight you can’t lift.
A fog that doesn’t clear.
One blood test won’t find it—this takes multiple steps
Cortisol shifts through the day.
It’s high in the morning.
Low at night.
Unless it isn’t.
Unless something’s off and reversed.
Blood.
Saliva.
Urine.
More than once.
It needs to be tracked over time.
Seen in patterns.
No single number will reveal this.
But patterns always tell the truth.
If someone knows how to read them.
If someone listens to more than numbers.
Left alone, it affects every system it touches
Cushing’s doesn’t stay small.
It raises blood pressure without warning.
Destabilizes sugar and metabolism.
Weakens bones and joints.
It makes your immune system slower.
Your heart more vulnerable.
Your mind more fragile.
You lose things.
Not just memory—but confidence.
Trust in your body.
And slowly, you forget how you used to feel.
Before all this began.
Before everything became this hard.