Yoga FTW.
This year, we did a post about super-inspirational yogi’s to follow on Insta. We featured popular Instagrammer Angelique Fredericks, talking about how beautiful her shots are. Little did we know, there’s a reason for Angelique’s online presence — and it goes far beyond athletic poses.
Not Just A Pretty Picture
In June this year, Angelique opened up on the ‘Gram about her journey with yoga, and how it was largely influenced by the debilitating condition she has, called fibromyalgia. It’s a condition categorized by widespread pain and accompanies poor sleep, memory and mood issues. “It’s so amazing to be seen as an inspiration and I’ve had some time of reflection since @womenshealthmagsa posted about my account,” Angelique said in her caption. “It’s weird, because the whole reason I even started posting my yoga practice [was] to inspire “normal bodied” people that if I can do it, so can you and most importantly, to bring awareness to what your body is capable of,” she said.
When Angelique was around 11 years old, she began experiencing pains in her legs and back. She saw numerous doctors, but nobody could find anything wrong with her. “At that age you tend to believe the grown-ups so I didn’t give it much thought,” she says. “But these symptoms persisted throughout my adolescence. I was an athlete and a gymnast since primary school until my late teens and still, I was experiencing the same symptoms and some cognitive challenges related to FMS.” After checking with the doc again, she was told to ease up on the workouts, the thinking being that her pains were exercise-related. But they were wrong.
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The Flare-Up
“In 2008, my second year of university, I was in a car accident that changed my whole life,” says Angelique. “I had suffered a concussion and had 68 stitches on my forehead, nose, brow and hairline.
“Due to the brain trauma, I was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, severe anxiety, depression and insomnia. Unbeknown to me, the trauma also triggered fibromyalgia. I experienced almost every symptom under the sun, the worst being the widespread pain: neurological pain, joint pain, inflammation, muscle tenderness, cognitive and sensory impairments and fatigue, just to name a few.” Even then, her condition went undiagnosed. Three years later, Angelique was in the bathroom and her mother walked in on her and found a giant bruise on her back, bluish in colour and the shape of a butterfly. It covered her entire back. “I hadn’t had a fall and I’d always had this back problem so I was self-medicating and resting as much as I could,” she said. Still, she was in immense pain and for a period of three months, couldn’t walk more than 20 paces. Doctors conducted MRI scans and blood tests, all of which came back inconclusive. “At this point I was so frustrated and irritated. I had had enough of my body sabotaging my life so I decided to do some research and deducted that I had fibromyalgia,” says Angelique. “The third doctor referred me to an endocrinologist and I was diagnosed with the one illness that sounds like a made-up name – fibromyalgia.”
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Omming It Out
Having fibro meant being in a world of pain, and yoga unlocked mobility and eased the stiffness in her body. “It was the best discovery of my life,” says Angelique. Her first class was Bikram, a slow-moving yoga in a heated room. “The very next day, I felt a big difference and much less pain and stiffness. I think the heat was the best thing for loosening up my muscles,” she says. “Have you ever just stretched and feel like you pulled your whole life together? That’s exactly what finding yoga felt like. Like I had an answer to making myself feel better; like I was a little in control of me again.” Because yoga became such an integral part of her recovery, her practice advanced, which is why she’s able to pull off the incredible poses you see on her feed. But living with fibro means every day is different, and often she can’t even touch her toes. “It’s hard as fudge getting out of bed and doing simple tasks; I struggle with it even though I do all these crazy poses,” she says.
This is why her Instagram account is more than just #fitspo; it’s a means of encouragement for able-bodied people who need that extra push. “I always say if I can do it so can you,” says Angelique. “You don’t do yoga to be flexible or strong, you do it to become that and more. Don’t be discouraged by seeing me being a pretzel on Instagram. I’m living proof that yoga makes life better.” We couldn’t have said it better ourselves.
Want more? Here’s how yoga can help your pregnancy, and how one woman used yoga to lose over 37 kilos.
