I grew up in a rural industrial area, in the milieu of massive amounts of xenohormone-enriched air and water pollution, and experienced a gamut of "female" problems, ranging from chronic menorrhagia and hemorrhaging to dysfunctional anovulatory uterine bleeding to severe dysmenorrhea (literally as painful as labor) to cervical cancer to endometriosis to precancerous endometrium (finally terminated with a hysterectomy after more than 30 years of suffering) to fibrocystic breast disease to hirsuitism to acne and cystic acne to Graves' disease. My interaction with the medical establishment was frustrating at best, possibly criminally negligent at worst. I was ignored, discounted, refused iron supplements for anemia, prescribed tranquilizers for cystic acne, given a mental health diagnosis for significant low back pain following a BWC injury, by doctors who refused to even take an x-ray. When I was able to order my own lumbar spine x-ray series and had to pay for it myself, it revealed significant, long-term lumbar pathology. 
When I became pregnant at age 29 and took LaMaze classes without my husband (the instructor did not want to admit me, but I stood my ground and got in), and practiced the labor skills by myself, I became enamored with the birthing process. I embraced the desire to help other women with the birthing process after I became pregnant at age 31 and the male Labor and Delivery nurse did everything wrong. I had enough training to know what he was doing wrong, and he copped an attitude towards me for knowing. I told him I was in labor and he told me I couldn't possibly know that, he would have to examine me and decide if I was in labor. I emphatically told him no to having my waters broken because I had had a cervical conization, but I was in stirrups and he broke the amniotic sac anyway, triggering the precipitous birth of a baby who was corded twice, required resuscitation, and suffered brain damage due to traumatic birth and oxygen deprivation.
I told myself I wanted to find a way to help prevent these things from happening to other women. It took a long time because I suffered from chronic systemic inadequate income.
I continually thought there was something inherently wrong with me, or I would not be treated the way I was treated by nearly the entire allopathic healthcare system. Then, in a CEU class I took on women's health, I discovered that the way I was treated was more usual in women's healthcare than unusual! I was more familiar with much better treatment provided to cute, perky, big-busted girls than to plain girls like myself, and I was shocked to learn that how we, the plain girls, were treated was actually the norm in women's health care in America!
In middle age, I developed Graves disease and the medical establishment wanted to kill or remove my thyroid and put me on levothyroxin for the rest of my life. I talked to 4 women who said they were more than sorry they had agreed to do that. I knew there had to be a better way.
I discovered Carolen Koleszar, a nurse practitioner and naturopath, who helped me control my Graves disease almost naturally, with a nod to a beta-blocker, for 15 years before it went into full remission. I have some bone demineralization from it, but I still have my own thyroid, producing its own healthy thyroid hormones made uniquely for my own body.
I was working as a Counselor and looking for a different profession to retire in to at the time, and I can only call it a leading to decide to become a naturopath. It has not been an easy business journey, and if I did not believe it was a leading, I would have quit a long time ago.
Carolen suggested a naturopathic school, Clayton College of Natural Healty - they closed their doors one morning by leaving a note of apology for closing on their front door window! I looked around for a couple of years and found Triinity School of Natural Health. I had barely enough money in savings to pay for the program, and I went for it.
People often tell me, "You should choose just one thing to do, like reflexology," but I am not a technician; I am a wellness professional. I have a lot of sub- and side- training and certifications because they allow me to appropriately practice the many pieces of natural wellness I have interest in. Being mulitply certified rather than licensed (licensing for what I do is not offered in the state in which I live) limits my practice somewhat, but allows me to practice almost anywhere, and help people from almost everywhere.