About Annemarie
Annemarie became paralyzed but got back up: 'I don't want to give up, I want to live'
She became paralyzed at the age of eleven and ended up in a wheelchair. After years of fighting to walk again, she changed course: no longer recuperating, but living. It worked. Annemarie Postma became a model, wrote several bestsellers and became a successful entrepreneur. "Despite all the misery, I have found happiness."
She has been in a wheelchair for almost forty years. But despite her paralysis, she never really sat still. Annemarie Postma (48) never gave up, stayed alive and therefore fell from one challenge to the next.
“If you are disappointed, you can become bitter and think: I will not participate anymore and stand on the sidelines,” she begins. "But you can also be present and stay on the road. If you ask yourself every day what life will bring you today and how you can grow, then you will find your true happiness."
Paralyzed at a young age
That was a matter of trial and error. That life motto did not come by chance either. Annemarie had to fight her way out of many deep valleys. Major disappointments came at an early age.
At the age of eleven, she became paralyzed from one moment to the next. "I went to bed at night. Nothing had happened that day," she says. But the next morning Annemarie could no longer walk. "My legs felt like rubber bands. I had no strength at all and collapsed. I was completely paralyzed from below."
General practitioners arrived and the ambulance was called. Ultimately, she had to be lifted out of the window by paramedics. She was in the hospital for three months. "In a completely isolated room. My parents had to wear white suits when they came to visit. I was given examination after examination, epidural after epidural. What I had? Doctors had no idea."
Annemarie appeared to have suffered a spinal cord injury due to a spinal cord infection. "A tick bite was probably the cause. But I don't know for sure. To this day it is a mystery."
Rehabilitate
After three months in hospital she had to recuperate. She lived in a rehabilitation center in Rotterdam for two years. She then spent more than two years in a Frisian center. "I was really a rehabilitation child. I had lost my life. I had no more chances or dreams. Everything was aimed at helping me walk again. I had to get out of that wheelchair and get better. Because only then would I be normal."
She was stressed throughout her childhood. "Because I was no longer allowed to dream and no longer enjoy myself." She continues: "My mother was a very intelligent woman. She thought the rehabilitation took far too long and took me to doctors in England and Germany. She wanted to get me better again. That makes sense, because parents want their child to get better and is normal. As a child, I had long since resigned myself to it and accepted that I had become paralyzed."
Fashion model
After three months in hospital she had to recuperate. She lived in a rehabilitation center in Rotterdam for two years. She then spent more than two years in a Frisian center. "I was really a rehabilitation child. I had lost my life. I had no more chances or dreams. Everything was aimed at helping me walk again. I had to get out of that wheelchair and get better. Because only then would I be normal."
She was stressed throughout her entire childhood. "Because I was no longer allowed to dream and no longer enjoy myself." She continues: "My mother was a very intelligent woman. She thought the rehabilitation took far too long and took me to doctors in England and Germany. She wanted to get me better again. That makes sense, because parents want their child to get better and is normal. As a child, I had long since resigned myself to it and accepted that I had become paralyzed."
Bestselling author
At a party she met a publisher. He was interested in her life story. “Can you write, he asked?” she says. Annemarie continues: "I had never done that, but I wanted to try." She wrote her first book: I love me, which sold 200,000 copies in our country. "Writing helped me to understand myself. I shared my inner journey with my readers. That brought clarity and helped me to understand my wonderful path in this life."
Annemarie unknowingly became an example for many. A spiritual guru. Her books were published in 43 countries, and she received a weekly column in the AD. Her stories about self-development, personal growth and health have earned her a large following of fans.
Staying young and fit in a wheelchair
During this period she also started to delve more and more into nutrition. Something she had always done. "Because I was in a wheelchair, my mother gave me a lot of awareness about nutrition. People who use a wheelchair live less because they are more likely to develop diabetes, cardiovascular disease, obesity and accelerated aging. I have been in a wheelchair for almost forty years, but I would like to grow old healthily. Stay fit and healthy."
She started writing books about nutrition and set up the AM Lifestyle Medicine Center: the first medical treatment and training center for lifestyle medicine in the Netherlands that specializes in obesity, type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease and nutrition for people who sit a lot or have a spinal cord injury. to have. She put together a medical team of doctors, specialists and psychologists herself. "We have developed a concept that focuses on dietary change. Healthy nutrition not only has a positive effect on chronic disease, but also on overall health."
Accept and live
Annemarie now travels all over the world to give lectures and information. She has found happiness, together with her husband and eight adopted dogs.
The road to it was not easy, she concludes. "But despite all the misery, I have never been a quitter. Life is a tangle of randomness. It does all kinds of things to you. You often have little say in it. You don't get any information leaflet about the events. That's why you better remember to surrender to the events. I have accepted that it will always be a secret why I became paralyzed. We always want to know everything, but it is better to accept. Accepting is actually much more important. Only then can you live and grow. Every day weather."
Source: RTL News / Agnes de Goede