A Short Bio
My name is Jess, and I am an artist, writer, and musician based in Budapest and Vienna. I have a B.A. in Art and Art History, and what I call a "Me-hD" in alternative healing: I took control of my lifestyle, education, and medical choices and recovered from all kinds of conditions doctors told me were permanent. As a result, my personal motto is: "It's Possible."
I was born and raised in the United States, and in my 20's, started traveling and living for several years in Romania and Hungary, where I married a Transylvanian (who claims he's not a vampire, but I have my suspicions). We moved back to the USA in 2015, where I fell ill with several debilitating diseases on top of some chronic conditions. Joyclam Studio was created in a desperate attempt to hang onto my deteriorating sense of self and my life through personal expression. Now in remission after 10 years, you can find me living somewhere in the former Austro-Hungarian empire, trying to rebuild a life of passion, expression, and supportive societies. I love art, music, world cultures, self-healing, spiritual exploration, and have big crushes on Jesus and cognitive neuroscience. I'm kind of obsessed with Unconditional Love as our Source, essence, and purpose, and Authenticity as our highest calling.
This website is my pearl, my art, and my offering, fully designed, photographed, written, and maintained by yours truly. I'm not here to monetize or delegate my self-expression to anyone else, and certainly not to artificial intelligence.
Happy as a Clam
The name "Joyclam" comes from an actual typo that appeared in a church bulletin when I was a baby. It became an occasional nickname growing up, and eventually turned into a fitting artistic identity.
"They who dive in the sea of affliction bring up rare pearls." - Charles Spurgeon.
Natural pearls are formed when a bivalved mollusk, like a clam, launches a defense mechanism against a foreign substance. It envelops the irritant with layers of nacre, creating a beautiful pearl from what was once a dangerous invader.
Like a clam, my days are infiltrated with misfortunes and irritants. Over time, Love - call it God, Grace, Spirit, Source, Truth, or the Pituitary Gland - envelops my circumstances like nacre, and layers of experience and refinement turn them into pearls of joy, hope, and faith.
I consider Joyclam a strand of rare pearls dug from my sea of affliction, and strung together on the thread of my life,
Mother-of-Pearl: My Diagnoses
“How could you reach the pearl by only looking at the sea? If you seek the pearl, be a diver..." -Rumi
In 2015, after repatriating to the US from Europe, I began weaning off of pharmaceutical antidepressants after 15 years of SNRI/SSRI use for "hereditary chemical imbalance," with severe discontinuation / withdrawal effects. Then in 2016, I found myself infected with Lyme disease, Babesia, and Bartonella from an undetected tick bite. These infections were slow to respond to treatment, leaving me with debilitating symptoms, reduced physical and mental capacity, and bringing my life to a screeching halt. After the failure of Western medicine, worsening anxiety and panic, and collecting more diagnoses like Candida, MCAS, Fibromyagia, ME/CFS, neuropathy, all kinds of theories about my eyes like Epithelial Basement Membrane Dystrophy and Sjögren's Syndrome, ADD and psychosomatic disorders, I dove into the sea of self-healing, Chinese Medicine, and nutrition.
By 2019, I realized that not only does chronic illness cause some PTSD that needs to be treated, but the original "clinical depression" and chronic fatigue were themselves manifestations of C-PTSD, childhood and religious trauma, and adjustment disorder from immigrating. 2020 brought the challenge and the opportunity of learning to heal my nervous system (and the immune system along with it) and reinvent myself during a pandemic. Thankfully this mess also brought frequent encounters with grace, a deeper (and deconstructed) relationship with God, and a whole new relationship with my Self. I learned the principles of psycho-neuro-immunology and began to repair and regulate my nervous system with self-curated protocols. By 2022, I was declared in remission from tick-borne diseases and off all medications, and began a slow crawl toward reintegrating life off the couch.
After years of post-traumatic growth, I have returned to my European soul, and my roots of art, music, and writing, letting them flow through pain and joy, fear and hope, love and sorrow, rather than be blocked by fear of difficult emotions. Always a work in progress; I don't believe happiness or healing is a destination, but a way of accepting and loving life as it comes. Strangely, when I gave up "goals" in healing, my dreams started coming true, and I increasingly feel like "I've made it!" for precious, fleeting moments that I've learned to cherish and carry with me through the next struggle.