David Baxter PhD
Late Founder
In Sickness and In Health ? We Don?t Recover
By Dr. Lisa Holland
June 18, 2010
We may not like where we are, what we are feeling or whom were with?BUT when we get sick or something tragic happens in our life ? all we want is to be who we were before IT happened.
Emotional push-pull of situations like this one can make you feel crazy, leaving you wondering if you?re ever going to be happy.
In a life time, we can bet that something unexpected will happen ? and when it does, it will change us.
I?ll use myself as an example; that Friday, a few months before my eighth birthday, I climbed up onto our ungrounded washing machine and dangled my feet under the running water, I set off an electrical chain reaction that stopped my heart. It erased my memory of myself and left me and my family with the new girl ? the one no one knew.
For years afterward I tried to be her ? the one they remembered. Why? Because I knew they loved her and I wasn?t sure they would love me?the new me. It turned out to be a painful ride.
In 1997, when I read my old hospital chart notes, the words??Lisa should have a full recovery? sent my stomach in to a spin. I felt as though I was cresting and about to zip down a steep rollercoaster ? but I couldn?t help reading the words over and over.
I started thinking about the word Recover, and I realized that telling a patient they?ll recover is not the thing to do. It?s just a word you might say BUT here?s my thinking based on what I know and have learned.
When people are vulnerable and in search of anything that offers hope, telling someone ?you?ll recover? sets them up to search for a status that?s unattainable.
Even if you are the picture of health, you will not be who you were yesterday. Why? Because you?ve lived another day full of new stuff, new insights, conversations, experiences, thoughts and ideas.
It?s hard for me as a therapist to tell patients they won?t Recover because I know how desperately they want themselves back. But I also know the truth is healing.
Instead I focus on helping them see and integrate:
We are changed.
We won?t recover who we were.
But we can begin the next chapter of our lives and be the person the situations is teaching us to be.
By Dr. Lisa Holland
June 18, 2010
We may not like where we are, what we are feeling or whom were with?BUT when we get sick or something tragic happens in our life ? all we want is to be who we were before IT happened.
Emotional push-pull of situations like this one can make you feel crazy, leaving you wondering if you?re ever going to be happy.
In a life time, we can bet that something unexpected will happen ? and when it does, it will change us.
I?ll use myself as an example; that Friday, a few months before my eighth birthday, I climbed up onto our ungrounded washing machine and dangled my feet under the running water, I set off an electrical chain reaction that stopped my heart. It erased my memory of myself and left me and my family with the new girl ? the one no one knew.
For years afterward I tried to be her ? the one they remembered. Why? Because I knew they loved her and I wasn?t sure they would love me?the new me. It turned out to be a painful ride.
In 1997, when I read my old hospital chart notes, the words??Lisa should have a full recovery? sent my stomach in to a spin. I felt as though I was cresting and about to zip down a steep rollercoaster ? but I couldn?t help reading the words over and over.
I started thinking about the word Recover, and I realized that telling a patient they?ll recover is not the thing to do. It?s just a word you might say BUT here?s my thinking based on what I know and have learned.
When people are vulnerable and in search of anything that offers hope, telling someone ?you?ll recover? sets them up to search for a status that?s unattainable.
Even if you are the picture of health, you will not be who you were yesterday. Why? Because you?ve lived another day full of new stuff, new insights, conversations, experiences, thoughts and ideas.
It?s hard for me as a therapist to tell patients they won?t Recover because I know how desperately they want themselves back. But I also know the truth is healing.
Instead I focus on helping them see and integrate:
- what they see themselves doing; getting to treatment, smiling when they?re in pain and welcoming visitors
- what they were afraid of that they aren?t afraid of now (yes, fear is a major factor)
- what they once avoided that they now, welcome
- what they would not let themselves feel but now, feel
We are changed.
We won?t recover who we were.
But we can begin the next chapter of our lives and be the person the situations is teaching us to be.
