Daniel Schlittler: Finding Your Medicine
Daniel Schlittler (Cherokee Nation) | Age 41 | Alajuela, Costa Rica
For the next health story, I’d like to introduce you to Dan, the first member of my family to willingly agree to be featured on this blog (as opposed to my parents, son and husband, who get dragged in to prove my points, for humor sake and other special effects). Dan is one of my many cousins, a first cousin at that. We share as set of grandparents and like most families, we have our fair share of depression and substance abuse in the family.
When Dan was younger, he really struggled. He struggled with anxiety and depression, with the pressure of coming of age as a gay man in conservative areas of the USA, the weirdness of being a Cherokee kid raised outside the Cherokee Nation and having to expend the energy to constantly reconnect, and how all of that plays into sorting out your identity as a teenager and young adult. That’s a whole lot to process, for anyone. It’s especially hard when you are already dealing with underling mental health challenges.
I will never forget the family dinner at my parent’s house, when Dan awkwardly and quietly uttered: “there’s something that I need to tell you.” I hated that Dan felt like he needed to “come out” to us, but it is seared in my memory as one of the moments that made me love my very manly man father more than all the other epic things he’s done and said over the years. Dad got up, walked around the table, wrapped his big arms around Dan’s seated body and said “we know, we love you.” Period. I remain heartbroken for anyone that has mustered up the courage like Daniel did, and got anything less than that same response. We. Love. You. How hard is that to say? To feel?
Fast forward 20 years or so, including some really rough years. Now Dan’s in a really good place. Literally and figuratively. He feels great. He looks amazing. He’s really thriving in unprecedented ways. To put it short and simple: he’s fully and unequivocally, alive. Transformational change is an understatement.
The only thing about his current life that I’d change, is to have him back closer to home with us - but at the same time, he’s on to something VERY big. I couldn’t be happier for him. His health journey is an inspiration.
With all my love to him for sharing so much of himself with us, time and time again, enjoy Daniel’s story of finding his medicine:
“If anyone has ever told you that culture shock is no big deal, they’ve never experienced culture shock. It’s real, it sucks, and it rears its ugly head even after you’ve settled in and made peace with things like cultural quirks and frequent earthquakes. That being said, adjusting to foreign foods is not something that took a lot of getting used to. Before leaving the US, I was your typical, make it fast and easy American.
Having moved to Costa Rica almost four years ago, a country where fresh foods of all sorts, specifically fresh produce, is available year-round, I have shed my Midwestern ways, and I now eat like a Tico. Rice, beans, plantains, cassava, papaya, rambutan, dragon fruit, mango, sweet potato, bananas, avocado, and a bunch of stuff I don’t have time to list are all on the menu. The seemingly endless supply of fresh, ridiculously affordable food made my head spin. I’m still amazed by the shear volume of fresh produce that I see when I visit the farmer’s market in Alajuela every Friday afternoon. I’m not telling you all this to brag, although life in a place with eternal summer and never more than a 20 degree temperature swing is rather nice. I’m telling you all this because being forced to change the way I eat changed my brain.
We often hear that food is medicine. In the past, this assertion would make my ears slam shut. I’d assume the speaker was some hippy dippy, patchouli wearing, crystal loving type that had a “shaman”, and whose great great great grandmother was allegedly an Indian princess. We’ve all met them. Having been forced to change my diet, I can unequivocally state that I should have listened to Dances with Poodles, or whatever her name was.
I lived the first 37 years of my life plagued by crippling anxiety and depression. Name a class of psychiatric drug, and I’ve tried it. As the months went by here in Costa Rica, I realized that I wasn’t feeling depressed. I also realized that my anxiety level, while not completely gone, was suddenly manageable. It wasn’t because I wasn’t stressed. Living in a foreign country, learning a foreign language, and navigating a new culture are stressful things. Something else was going on. I started to look for clues. As I began eliminating suspects, I slowly realized what it was. Food. I had eliminated all of the fast, easy, chemical laden foods that had been staples of my Midwestern diet. Now, I was eating fresh, whole, farm to table foods.
The decision was an easy one to make. Processed foods are horribly expensive here. Ready-to-eat foods cost four or five times what fresh food costs. I can go to the farmer’s market and buy 20lbs or 30lbs of fresh fruits and vegetables for $20, or I can can call Pizza Hut and blow $20 on poisonous food that will make me feel like crap and only last a couple of days. I am trilled to say that, nearly four years later, I haven’t had a single depressive episode.
I realize that buying fresh produce is more expensive in the US, and that my geographical location makes it easier for me to access super-foods like papaya and dragon fruit. I also realize that some people need psychiatric medications, and should not stop taking them just because some crazy person in Costa Rica told them food is medicine and that cutting out processed food cured his depression. I’m not saying to throw your antidepressants in the garbage.
What I am saying is that every food choice I make has the potential to hurt or heal me. What I’m saying is love your body, and give it the healing medicine it needs. If that healing medicine is fresh, whole foods, give it fresh whole foods. If that healing medicine is yoga, give it yoga. If that healing medicine is time spent with your grandchildren, then spend time with your grandchildren. We could all do with more healing medicine these days, regardless of what form it comes in. Fresh foods really are healing medicine for me. The crazy patchouli lady was right, at least about that. The Indian princess thing is another matter entirely.
Here’s the recipe for one of my favorite Costa Rican dishes:
Gallo Pinto
4 or 5 cups of day old cooked rice (Fresh rice is too wet and will not work!)
One 14oz can of red or black beans, reserve the juice
Two cloves of garlic, minced
One medium onion, finely chopped
1/4 bunch of Cilantro, roughly chopped
One small Bell Pepper, diced
1/2 cup of strong chicken or beef stock
Salt and Pepper to taste
In a large pot, saute the onion, bell pepper, and garlic in oil until the onion is translucent. Add the beans, half the bean juice, and 1/4 cup of the chicken or beef broth and bring to a simmer. Add 4 cups of rice and mix well. The mixture should be moist but not wet. If you need additional moisture, add more broth. If it’s too wet, add more rice. Cook on medium-low heat until the rice dries out a bit, about 10-15 minutes, stirring frequently. Add the cilantro immediately before serving. We typically eat this for breakfast, but it goes well with everything!”