About Me

When I say “I have managed to thrive,” here’s what I mean: I’m an attorney licensed to practice law in CA, DC, NJ, and PA. I took and passed on the first try three Bar exams, and scored high enough to be able to waive into my fourth license.  

But my achievements haven’t come without tremendous struggle and without having put myself in danger on multiple occasions in order to pursue my goal of “winning” and of not allowing my health to dictate my life.

I don’t want anyone to go through the painful journey that my twin sister and I and our family have gone through, searching for answers with dozens, if not hundreds, of doctors dismissing and traumatizing us over decades. Even with the answers we now have, we still experience the gaslighting and the verbally and emotionally abusive interactions that we naively thought would go away once the diagnoses starting rolling in.

The world is making progress for people like me, but it’s slow and it’s not without unreasonable fights and devastation along the way. Many of the resources shared on this website and that I rely heavily upon didn’t exist when my journey began, and the things that have changed my health for the better didn’t come from doctors.

I hope that my platform - this website and the associated social media channels - will:

  • Empower patients to take control over their health and their lives and to become powerful self-advocates;

  • Support patients to recognize that they can live full, happy lives and follow their dreams, even though their paths may look different than those of someone with a simpler health experience;

  • Guide patients, families, friends, communities, and medical providers to better understand how these challenges can impact our lives

  • Inspire families, friends, and community members to learn about these conditions and how they can better support us and become allies;

  • Encourage medical providers to learn from us - because we are the ones who know our bodies best.

Thank you for being here - and I encourage you to schedule a call with me! You can learn more about me here.

P.S. If you’re interested in the movement to bring wellness into law, please visit The Wellness Esquire.

P.P.S. I invite you to read about my story in “The Curse of a ‘None of the Above’ Disease” and “Healthy for the First Time.”

Hi! My name is Ariella Cohen Coleman, and I have managed to thrive and live a very happy life while living with a complex set of conditions, which include: Hypermobility Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome (POTS), Mast Cell Activation Syndrome (MCAS), Hereditary alpha Tryptasemia (HaT), Gastroparesis, Small Bowel Dysmotility, Peripheral Neuropathy, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, mold infection and toxic overload, Laryngospasm/Paradoxical Vocal Cord Motion Dysfunction, osteopenia (upgraded from osteoporosis, woohoo!), and a history of concussions.

I’m also a Highly Sensitive Person (HSP) and an empath, which, while not medical conditions, are genetic traits that cause me to be hypersensitive to the world and people around me in a way that can be exhausting, overwhelming, stressful, and neurologically alarming.