Embody Mental Health

Posts Tagged ‘trauma’

Glamour magazine’s August edition published an article “Endometriosis & Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome: Two Women’s Diseases Doctors Miss Most: Could You Have One?” by Hallie Levine Sklar.  The subheader read “As many as 20 percent of women have one of them, but it can take years to be diagnosed with endometriosis or polycystic ovarian syndrome.  If you or anyone you know is suffering, this piece is required reading.”  I, and many people I know are suffering, and so of course, I read further.  As I did I pondered the people I know with this condition.

All of us had suffered for an average of 10 years with the pain and side effects of our respective conditions {mine, as I have disclosed before, is endometriosis}.  All of us had, had symptoms going back as far as middle school or early high school.  All of us had been told by professionals and trained gynecological and other specialists for years that it was “normal” and “just part of our regular body functions” and had been shuffled off or sent home with pills or heating pads {I personally have burnt out innumerable heating pads, yes, they can burn out}.  All of us had to lobby and be our own advocates when the pain and effects became too great to ignore or just hide in bathrooms on floors crying for nights on end.  All of us only got “diagnosed” after much personal research, seeking out of the proper experts ourselves, and even more lobbying to be tested and checked for more than just a “normal” woman’s bodily function.  All of us were right.  All of us were ignored.

So, as I read further in this article in a popular women’s magazine I sighed that sigh of relief you get when you can put down your picket sign and let someone else talk about the issue for a moment.  And I thank you Hallie Levine Sklar for doing just that.  This article was full of all these truths that so many women I know and myself have suffered through.  It talked about the average decade from onset to diagnosis that went unheard for many, I would say most, women with these conditions.  I know all the women I can think of diagnosed with this condition are in their 30′s or older and all have received their diagnosis in the last 1-5 years at most.

Empowerment.  Advocacy.  Strong words with strong images conjured up of picketing, signs, and a lot of riot grrl roaring.  We often forget in the mix of it all to lobby for ourselves as much as anyone else.  Even if it means being our own champions against the “experts” and saying how we feel and not backing down when we aren’t being heard.  Even and ESPECIALLY when it comes to our own health.  I learned this the slow and painful hard way.  I spent years in certitude that the professionals in the medical community that I went to time and again when the pains increased, the ruptured cysts persisted, and the nights spent on the bathroom floors crying multiplied, all told me that it was “normal” and to go home and use my heating pad.

Finally, three years ago, and after a month spent more out of work than in the office, I began to research, and research, and research because I realized no one was going to listen to me until I had something specific I wanted to say besides, “It really doesn’t feel normal, isn’t there anything else you can check for?”  I self-diagnosed in one afternoon between the wonderful forums and information rich sites of EndoResolved ,  Endometriosis.org , The Endometriosis Association , and The Endo Research Center.  By the end of one day I had assessed that all my symptoms from gastrointestinal to bladder to ovarian all linked up and all the questions about what was wrong with me was answered…with one day of google searching.  After I got through my stages of grief..skipping denial {everyone else had done that fairly well for me} and straight into anger and zipping through into acceptance.  Acceptance of the way I had been ignored about my own body for so many years.  Acceptance of the fact that my anger, while justified, would not change the past or the responses I had faced.  Acceptance of the knowledge that if anything proactive was going to be done on my behalf, on behalf of my wounded body, I would have to do it and not take “normal” as a response to my issues any longer.

I advocated and was forced into a role of empowerment in a medical system I did not understand all the way to the surgery table.  One of the major issues with endo is the fact that no MRI or scan will show it.  You have to do a simple laproscopy to look for it and assess if it exists or not.  I was never one ready for invasive medical procedures but 10 years of pain made me want to know, and all my research made me need to know if I was right, my body was right, and the medical professionals all along my journey were wrong.  They were.  Once I finally had the procedure they found a pretty severe case of Stage 3 (out of 4) endometriosis which had, in 10 years of growth and damage while statements of  ”normal” were leaving it alone to do its dirty endo business, eaten away at parts of my fallopian tube on one side, and adhered itself to my bladder, ovaries, and bowels.  ”Told you so,” just didn’t seem to bring satisfaction.  But getting all that garbage out of my body definitely did.

Reading Ms. Levine Sklar’s article and hearing the statistics yet again, the stories of many other unheard women’s voices, and many oblivious professionals, stirred up some of my old picket sign grumbles.  I felt a need to highlight the well written article and this issue which is pervasive in the female population.  Both with my condition {endometriosis} and that of many friends of mine {PCOS; polycystic ovarian syndrome}.  Both which, left untreated, can lead to issues with fertility as well as a variety of organ damage and a gamut of painful symptoms not only for the female organs but many other parts of the body including bowel, bladder, appendix and others.  Just scour the forums on EndoResolved for a day and you will begin to see the number of illnesses linked to endometriosis and the ways it can exacerbate a number of medical issues.

I am finishing up a series on SELF CARE as an E-COURSE over at www.wishstudio.com this week and last week’s course material was about EMPOWERMENT {I will be offering this course in full and in pieces in my new products page shortly}.  Reading this article reminded me how important empowerment can be not only for our feelings of self-worth and confidence but ultimately and in extreme cases, can be vital for our health, longevity and quality of our lives and bodies.  We can be the one voice for ourselves {as well as others} when no one else, even professionals, will listen.  There are, I will say, a number of very well-educated and well-versed endometriosis and PCOS medical professionals out there whom I respect greatly and, when I finally found them, were very helpful in my further understanding of and treatment of my endometriosis {a chronic illness that will be with me at least until I have  hysterectomy one day, possibly, based on some data, even after that}.  I will also say that I had to find them myself after years on a medical journey that others were steering off course.  I had to take the reins of my life and take the steering of my own ship before anything was done.

Know that your voice does matter.  Your instincts and those pangs in your gut are telling you something important.  Don’t discount yourself just because someone else does, even if they have letters after their name {I say this being someone with letters after my name and knowing I am human, not perfect, and although I am not a doctor I would not say I was the authority on your life even if I were your therapist}.  Listen to yourself.  Be the voice for your own causes.  Know that sometimes the battles for self are the most important and need a champion.  You are not wrong just because someone, and sometimes many someones, tell you you are.  Believe in you.  I finally did in the case of my own long battle with chronic illness and although I am not “healed” in the biological respect from that ailment I am stronger for having fought and my body thanks me.  Now I have the information to move forward informed on what is best for my condition.  My thoughts go out to all the women battling endometriosis, PCOS, or any other painful condition or issue in silence.

“Opposition is a natural part of life. Just as we develop our physical muscles through overcoming opposition – such as lifting weights – we develop our character muscles by overcoming challenges and adversity.”

STEPHEN R. COVEY

I am very happy with Bindu Wiles new post today over at her blog and her wave of creative zen she has been perpetuating with her 21.5.800 Challenge which has been (to my great joy) extended!  In the vein of extending I am trying a new plight to post daily.  That means 7 days a week.  Even if one day is lighter than the next I want to be able to be consistent in the mayhem of life with posts and with post themes.  I am, with this 7 day a week dedication, have decided to try out a new format which I have been mulling over for a few months-days of the week themes.  I am actually very excited.  It is both like the writing exercise of a writing prompt and a motivation and clarification of what is important to me to cover on this blog moving forward into the next 100 posts and beyond!  I would love to hear your feedback on the new formula.

I am very excited about this personal challenge as well as continuing with Bindu’s wonderful 21.5.800 Community of Challenging.  If you have an interest in joining go to her site to join in the fun (yoga, writing, and challenge, oh my): www.binduwiles.com . I will be beginning the 7 day format by the 4th of July weekend.

I would begin sooner but I am in the process of becoming an impromptu foster mama of another abandoned puppy (beagle baby we have named Gambit–like X-Men), quitting my job (last day is next week), dealing with some revisiting by my endometriosis and her pain (grr), and working on some fun projects…including fiddling with a new look and new features for this site!  So, please look for the new format beginning July 4th weekend and some interesting updates and posts coming up in the interrum…including a potential expose on Mr. Gambit with the cutest smile and quite the bounce in his leaps.

I have found that life has given me ample opportunity for facing challenges lately.  Some I have faced with grace, some with panic, some with anger, and some with great clarity.  I appreciate them all (often in retrospect) and I am glad to give myself space and room to stretch and grow.  In this blog and in my life.  What ways are you able to stretch and grow heading ahead in life and into your summer?  Sometimes we forget to challenge ourselves and often that is when we need it most and when life gives us unexpected presents in the form of life’s confrontations.  This has definitely been the last few months for me.  What will be next?

CHECK OUT THE NEW BLOG SITE FORMAT BELOW.

MONDAY: Trauma, Eating Disorders, & Addictions: A Clinical Vantage Point w/a Personal Bent on Surviving & Thriving

TUESDAY: Creative Expressions: Letting Art Inform Your World View (art, dance, writing, reading, music, etc.)

WEDNESDAY: Animals: Relationship, Metaphor, & Musings on the Furry World

THURSDAY: Yoga: Finding Ways to Embody Health in Life

FRIDAY : 10 Things: Life Perspectives in List Format

SATURDAY: Bliss & Rejuvenation: Self-Care, Reprieves, and Finding Room to Breathe

SUNDAY: Faith: Spirituality, Contemplation, & Ritual in A Healthy Life Sphere

**INTERVIEWS will be inserted in the place of daily content when new ones come to fruition.  I hope to have many more wonderful interviewees to come.**

“Fear makes the wolf bigger than he is.”
German Proverb

Bindu Wiles post yesterday was about fear.  Bindu has been a breath of complicity in my blogosphere and I am very glad to have stumbled upon her writing, her story, and her 21.5.800 Challenge of which I am partaking.  Bindu’s story is one of trauma, survival and a renewal of self through therapy, yoga, buddhism, writing and breath.  Her story is emblematic of what I spoke about yesterday at the National Association of Social Worker’s Florida Conference and what has resonated in my own life story and recovery from trauma and PTSD–a restoration of breath and renewal of self by way of writing, yoga, and contemplative practices (buddhist, christian and yogic alike).  The passion I bring to my work, my speaking about the work, and into my life is one of feeling dedication and onus to perpetuate the discourse on what, for me, has been profound healing in my own life story and the stories of the patients/clients I have treated implementing the very things that brought about change for myself and my life.

“Fear makes the wolf bigger than he is,” or so goes the German proverb above.  I think this statement gets to the hear of Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).  A primal fear, animal in nature, overcomes us when in a dangerous situation–our survival mechanism kicks in and tells us one of the following,  ”Run, hide, fight, stop where you are” which translates to the built in mechanisms for fight, flight, freeze, submit.  In danger we become like the deer in the wild, doing everything we can to survive.  When PTSD is activated that survival response is locked in, “stuck” inside our body and brain and is not let go of when danger disappears.  We are left a constant state of “danger” or “I am going to die.”  Fear.  We are in a constant state of danger/fear.  Bindu’s post resonates with me because the pervasive fear of PTSD is so overwhelming and all-encompassing; something that logic cannot dissolve easily.  The hair-trigger response to anything that resembles danger (often distorted by a high-alert PTSD brain) takes the traumatized person all the way to the feelings of “I am going to die” before the non-trauma brain could even assess the situation.  PTSD brain doesn’t go from 0-100 in one second because in that “stuck” place it is already starting at 50 before even getting out of bed in the morning–high-alert is status-quo.  And it is exhausting.  I can tell you that from experience.  Asleep is exhausting.  Awake is exhausting.  And every moment is living on the precipice of erupting with fear.

This is much of what I talked about yesterday at the conference as well as how yoga, creative arts, and animal-assisted therapies (equine, canine, and even dolphin) can have such profound healing properties for the PTSD brain and living experience.  To me the combination of these elements combines the essential ingredients for the neurobiological issues of trauma and general brain “stuckness”.  Yoga, mind/body practices, and breathwork help restore our self-regulating and self-soothing capacities, creative arts help to find an outlet for expression outside of talk, give empowerment, purpose, and competency in action to people often very broken by trauma, and animals, with their ability to be both intuitive and non-judgmental relationships for a trauma survivor who may not be able to bring themselves into interpersonal relationships due to trust, shame and fear.  It was so interesting to me, as as I am always intrigued by the synchronicity of writing and happenstance, that while I was speaking about trauma and healing, Bindu was writing about her own plight in the fear of post-trauma, her intimate connection with her dog (an innately therapeutic relationship), and breath as restoration from out of a fear-infused moment.  In two different contexts, but from the same origin, we were talking about the same things.

I thank Bindu, and other trauma survivors I have met, for her eloquent and open vocalization of her experience and her ability to bring her insight and her life practices in to play to combat trauma and PTSD.  I continue to believe in the neuroplasticity of our brains–the ability of our brains to CHANGE.  I believe in trauma survivors ability to heal.  I believe in yoga, creative arts, and animals as amazing conduits to that healing.  I believe in the power of speaking our own truths and how much vocalization can be a catalyst for change.  I thank Bindu for her story and her post.  As well as for her 21.5.800 Challenge which I think is an inspiration and a call for self-care and healing in itself.    I thank all the wonderful participants at my workshop yesterday for their passions, enthusiasm, and the inspiration they brought me in the work they are doing, the dedication to their clients, and their openness to the creative explorations in therapy I was presenting to them.

WORD COUNT FOR TODAY: 804