Who Needs a Therapist?

"Oh God help me..!"

The cry of my heart was desperate and real.      

"I can't cope with this!".....I never imagined so many things would unravel so quickly. My head was reeling and my heart was broken beyond repair. 

Have you ever felt that way? Was it more than a feeling? It was for me...

I'll try not to let this get too heavy. It could if I let it. After a succession of life-changing events that included the loss of my muscle strength and mobility and thus, life as I knew it, I didn't even know where to begin. I believe in prayer, so I prayed; a lot. And then I prayed a lot more. 

I've been thinking for awhile now that I should write this. I always want to keep it real with you. I believe there are more of you out there, who, like me, couldn't move forward. You're stuck. Maybe you don't even want to go forward... I didn't. I just wanted my life to go back to the way it had always been. I assumed it would. It was a good life. So I waited. I remembered. I waited some more. I prayed. I wanted my life back....my real life. Not this one. Not this nightmare. The real me; the everything's back to "normal" now me. You know, back to the way it was when I could walk normally and run and ski and snowboard and do leg presses. Instead, I kept having paralysis, ending up in the ambulance and then the E.R. With each episode of paralysis, my muscles got weaker and weaker. Still, my mind wouldn't let me believe that I'd never be going back to being the old me. I was stuck. Maybe getting stuck is normal. It was for me, so I figured some of you might be able to relate. 

At times, I noticed how life continued on. It was going on all around me but not inside of me...I mean, we kept celebrating stuff:  birthdays, Thanksgiving, Christmas, the 4th of July, Cinco De Mayo and the Miami Heat! LeBron came to Miami to join D. Wade and UD. Championship talk was everywhere down here in South Florida! There were graduations, promotions, new jobs, weddings, births and anniversaries...but I could barely force myself to smile and go through the motions. If I wasn't despairing, I was just numb.

Looking back, I believe God placed some very key people in my life during these couple of years.  At the time, I thought He wasn't listening to my prayers, but He was. See, I thought I knew a few things about God, but in reality, I have learned that no one knows as much about Him as they think they do, especially me. He isn't able to be figured out. And He's not following some formula we think we have discovered. If we think He's revealed Himself in some prescribed way, all we have to do is read what happened to Job to start scratching our heads all over again. There are plenty of things He keeps to Himself. He answers to no one.

Enter Cynthia. She is a tall blonde; glowing, smiling, stylish and beautiful inside and out. She's wise, insightful, strong, empathic and funny! Boy do I love her sense of humor! She's the friend you want to have in your life no matter what's going on. As it happened, she arrived in my life just in the nick time! And for me, during this time, weekly visits with Cynthia meant hope was coming to listen and to interact with me. See, one of Cyn's best attributes is her ability to listen and hear what I'm saying. No one else in my life was filling that huge void for me. Those times with her will always mean absolutely everything to me.

Cynthia started out being a care minister to me, but she quickly became my very close friend. My church sent her to be with me weekly to make sure I was coping, which you now know, I wasn't. At least not very well. I didn't want to be sick. I didn't want my body to shut down. Every Thursday... week after week, she sat with me while I cried. Those were tough weeks.

I didn't care about the future. It meant nothing to me. I lived in the past. I did not want this future. I'd
start living again as soon as everything went back to normal. I didn't even know how to do life like this. And for some reason, I could tell it all to my new friend and confidant, Cynthia. She listened. She understood. She cried with me. She held my hand. She prayed with me. She loved me. Every Thursday. Over and over...

Other people would tell me about my future and all the plans God has for me and how everything works together for good...etc. Um, ya. A word about that...

Don't say that stuff to suffering people. (I know I can tell you that) It's probably best to stick to "weeping with those who weep." The future was a giant black hole that I knew nothing about. I didn't want to hear that God, who loved me, put me in this position so He could do something new in me or through me! Not then. So I stayed stuck. Stuck and scared and angry and depressed and lonely. See a theme here?

"I know a guy you should go talk to." I looked at Cynthia. "The therapist?," I asked. She just smiled at me. She had always referred to him as a counselor. In fact, you might say she had been pressing me, in her own gentle way, to get additional, professional help dealing with the new challenges in my life. After all, Periodic Paralysis and permanent disability changed my life dramatically. I changed. My relationships changed. It all changed.

Counselor, therapist, shrink...Whatever you want to call him, he's a rock star in my world! I thank God for him and for Cynthia, who persistently, yet lovingly insisted that I go see him. She was right all along. He IS a terrific counselor. He has helped me come to terms with some very difficult things. And he continues to. If you need help getting 'unstuck,' please don't be as stubborn as I was. I could've been receiving help much sooner...and gotten 'unstuck' that much quicker!

...Come to think of it, we could call my counselor doctor, because he has earned a PhD in Psychology and is also a LCSW (Licensed Clinical Social Worker). The hallmark of being a wise counselor is being a really good listener, so he asks a lot of the right questions, and then he makes an accurate diagnosis of situations that arise. And as they arise, he reminds me that, "chronic illness is not a one-time event, it is suffering a series of losses." And so it is. But there are also victories along the way. Come to find out, God really is doing something new in me and through me, but it has taken time for me to discover those things through grieving the losses, prayer and counseling.

So...who needs a therapist? I do, I do.
xx



  

Speaking of Therapists

Not long ago, I wrote to  you about the possibility of getting help from a professional counselor if you get 'stuck' in life...

Something happened to me this week that reminded me of this and I want to share it with you. It's not about counseling per say, but it does involve one of my other doctors, who's been treating me for awhile now, trying diligently to help get to the bottom of a muscle biopsy I recently had. He's even sent my slides out to some pretty impressive places to get 2nd and 3rd opinions. I mean this doctor has gone above and beyond for  me. I'm very grateful to him. Plus, I really like this guy as a person.

This week's appointment was unlike any other. See, very unexpectedly, he asked me how I fill my days now that I'm not as physically able to exercise and work~~like I used to be. And just as unexpectedly, a surge of tears hit my eyes and I had to swallow hard! (I was thinking, 'What's up with this? I haven't cried in a long time! Why now??') I was frustrated. But I said, "Wait.. I'm going to cry," and held up my finger.

So he waited...

"I keep my mind occupied."

He nodded.

"With writing?"

 (It's like he already knew)

So I nodded.

"And do you read a lot also?"

I kept nodding, thankful for unspoken language.

He nodded back. He was so serious.

Why am I telling you this little story?

Because he's never asked before. In the 2 years he's been treating me, those questions never crossed his lips. So why this time? I can't say for sure, but I think the fact that he had a cast on his leg and was using a scooter to get around had something to do with it...
...because the next words he uttered were, "It's only been a few weeks for me, and I can't stand just
sitting on the couch anymore." Hmmmmmmm.....Yes, I understand.

Ah! Empathy, that crowned jewel of mental health.

All of this led to a more meaningful discussion that I was more than happy to have with him. He is smart and caring. And honestly, my heart goes out to him. His prognosis is excellent. He's expected to recover fully and re-gain the use of his leg. It will require time and patience, of course. I told him I'd be praying for a fast and complete recovery for him because it's tough to be sidelined from your own life when you're used to going full-speed ahead! And his injury came as a result of doing something he loves...something that I also used to love; running. (Maybe that's what pushed the waterworks button) As we all know, the unexpected can come and change us in an instance when we least expect it.

He didn't offer any words of comfort or encouragement for me, which is ok--I suppose he's thinking it's his job to treat the physical me, which he does very, very well... Just because he's a doctor doesn't mean he has the gift of encouragement after all. (No one has all the gifts God can dole out!)
Maybe doctors don't think it's their place and they leave encouragement to people like family members and therapists to treat the emotional me and hopefully clergy to treat the spiritual me. I do have those people in my life, fortunately. I'm also blessed to have many friends who support me. Besides, lots of people, doctors included, find it hard to say the right things even when their patients lives are being dramatically re-routed. And he is an excellent doctor, so that's support enough. But I know this. He's living his life from my perspective for maybe the first time in his life. And that could serve him well as a doctor and a human being going forward if he allows it to. What do you think?
Blessings xx