When a person is physically unwell, possibly suffers from a chronic condition or faces physical challenges…. there’s medicine which can help, but sometimes, it just doesn’t. Even when taking a best-case scenario, and assuming medicine does help treat some or all of your physical symptoms, what medicine cannot do…. is heal your soul. What medicine cannot do, is teach a person how to live with the burdens and challenges of life. Or Teach a person how to deal with the nightmares, the fear, the worries, and thoughts that fill your mind with sorrow. From personal experience however, I can say that what does help with all of that, is therapy. In my case specifically, it was Gestalt Therapy.
I firmly believe that our mental and physical health are in some way connected. Yet the healthcare systems around the world have treated them separately for a long time and still do so today. Sadly, this continues to help play a role in mental health stigma, especially in Malta. For this reason, I think it’s even more vital for us to speak about this connection and I can start by speaking about some of my own experiences.
I can say, that the more my physical health deteriorated during my early years of MS, the more my mental health was affected, and both situations needed to be tackled in tandem for me to get to the healthy place I am today. Similarly, the situation has happened in reverse. The more my mental health suffered during the chaos of this pandemic, the more physical problems I experienced. I somehow see this connection comparable to the chicken and egg scenario. It’s not always entirely clear which comes first, and possibly the answer isn’t always the same, but they are definitely connected and we are fools if we can’t see that. We are even bigger fools if we see it but choose not to accept it and continue to treat them as two separate entities, by giving one, more importance than the other. . .
At the age of 23 when I got my first physical symptoms that eventually led to my MS diagnosis, I didn’t know about this connection, because no one had educated me about it. Because in school they taught me maths and physics, biology and PSD, however, back then, we didn’t have a therapist or counsellor in school for mental and emotional support. Thankfully, this is now changing. Likewise, when I was given my life-changing diagnosis, not one person at hospital asked me whether I felt the need to speak to someone like a therapist or counsellor to help process this news and soften the blow. Sadly, from what I’m told, this hasn’t changed to date. So, I’m here telling you about this connection, in case you do have MS, or any other debilitating condition and no one has bothered to tell you that this might at some point impinge on your mental health, if you don’t take care of it! When and if it does…please, speak to someone. The same way you did the minute you felt numbness, or tingling in your hands, fingers or feet, or the first time you experienced loss of vision, because the two, are equally important.
I’ll tell you a bit about the road that eventually led me to therapy. I remember clearly that in spite of the devastating news, at the time, I thought I was and felt invincible. Yet today, from this place, I look back and all I see is emptiness the size of a big black hole. I remember being in a place where the acceptance of my condition, wasn’t an option. Back then I felt that no one would accept or love me because of it. No one would choose to be with the 23-year-old “sick” person when they could choose a healthy one (I was wrong by the way!). So, I deflected, I pretended it wasn’t happening, to a point where I numbed myself from the reality of this diagnosis and from everything else as well. I thought that managing to pretend I was ok, in spite of everything, made me very strong, and partly I’ll admit, it did. Thanks to this numbness I could cope for years. I threw myself into work and I was always out and about. I tried to look as fine and as “normal” as I possibly could from the outside. But eventually, this is what broke me from the inside. Because how long can we pretend for? How long can we remain numb without causing further damage? Knowing that further damage, normally means self-harm.
One day, all these appearances came crushing down. I started to feel. All of it. I don’t remember what happened but I was suddenly too tired of pretending I was strong, and for a moment there, I felt like I was going to lose my mind. Then, I reached out, to a friend, a fellow warrior, who was stunned at first, because like I’ve said before, most people around me, did not know about my diagnosis. It is she that back then, now 8 years ago, recommended I see a therapist. The same therapist I owe most of this journey to and that’s how this all began.
The journey has been a long one. A changing one. An expensive one too if I must be completely honest, but I’d spend it all again in a second; because I need my therapist as much as I need my doctors in order to stay healthy, and you can’t put a cost on your health. My doctors treat my symptoms, with medication. My therapist heals my mind by showing me how to get a hold on my complex brain! Therapy, makes my soul feel understood. Therapy, taught me how to bring my worrisome thoughts, to the “here and now.” Which means, it taught me how to be in this very moment, despite everything else that might be happening in the future, be it a minute or a year from now. And in this moment…I write this blog, my son sleeps beside me, and all is well.
Yes, we’re going through a pandemic. Yes, the political and economic situation in our country is unstable to say the least. 2020 seems to be the year that can’t get more surreal if it tried – on a lot of fronts. It definitely showed us that we really have no idea what’s going to happen tomorrow; God forbid anything happened to Netflix at this point! But the idea is, that in the middle of all this unknown, I have this peaceful moment. I breathe and I get in touch with my senses. I can see my son sleeping peacefully, I hear the sound of silence and the tapping of my keyboard. I stop typing for a second and touch his face, and even though this moment is still the same 2020, with its many unanswered questions and problems; I have the strength and awareness to be here, where I am simply thankful and blessed to be alive.
Therapy, saved my life; and that’s the honest truth. It not only gave me a second chance at life, but a better life, filled with life tools I did not and could not have had before. Gestalt therapy for me is exactly that. A tool, that shines a light, leading the way through darkness that you cannot get past on your own. It does so, by means of awareness and connection, two things most of us struggle with – especially in this fast paced, cyber induced life we live in. Many times, all we need to do is talk. Talk about what we’re secretly thinking when we’re alone, and what we need when we do talk, is others to really listen, which regretfully, is a very rare trait in humanity. Our souls look for understanding, our soul craves acceptance, it craves for someone to see us for who we really are as a whole, without question and judgement – because we sure as hell judge ourselves enough already! In therapy I found someone who sees me, with all my flaws, my sins, my traumas and imperfections, I found understanding, and I finally learnt that with these imperfections, I am still worthy, and it is exactly these imperfections that make me human. More precisely, the human I am today, which I now like to believe, isn’t half bad after all!
For those of you that are interested to learn a bit more about what I’m saying and what therapy actually involves (which is not necessarily what you see in the movies 🙂 ) … Feel free to get in touch with me, ask any questions you have and I will be sure to answer all of them in one of my next blogs.