Recently I participated in a live Q&A with Hanli Hoefer, presenter, actor, and model. Below is a transcription. Hope that you enjoy reading as much as we did chatting
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The below is a real letter that I wrote to my old neurologist to let him know that I recovered from my complex condition, and have some insights on my process as a patient-turned therapist.
Dear Professor,
It has been 4 years since I have sat in your office. I'm hoping that you remember who I am. I was in and out of your rooms for the best part of a decade. All kinds of neurological symptoms - pain, weakness, numbness, tingling, migraines.
I was on multiple medications and intravenous treatments.
I'm writing to let you know that I got better. In fact, I recovered 100%.
I feel compelled to share a little with you, in the hope that it brings about some thoughts and conversations around your other patients who may be experiencing similar symptoms, with no real response to medical treatment.
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Relationship Triggers & Maps to Safety
Relationships are often the source of our biggest triggers.
Sometimes, we can find ourselves feel so overwhelmed by intense emotions that we cannot find a way to express ourselves in a way that helps us feel safer – both internally, and within the relationship.
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When we jump from trauma to spirituality, we often miss a very important step in our recovery and transformation. We transcend our darkness and move into light. We forgive ourselves and our perpetrators. We ‘wake up’ and relabel ourselves as ‘Conscious’, ‘Empath’, ‘Spiritual warrior’, ‘Self-healer’. And in the moment that we do this, we dis-identify with the wounded fragments of ourselves that have been screaming, raging, weeping and asking for a space to be heard.
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When we have unresolved trauma from physical abuse, it can play out in many areas of our lives. Having experienced this, and also working with this day in day out, there are a few key things I have learned. 1) Physical abuse is stored in the body 2) When we are physically abused, there is a fragmentation of the psyche that occurs and a suppression of various emotions. 3) The trauma of physical abuse shows up in our close relationships.
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In pain. Scared. Terrified actually. Heart racing, blood pressure elevated. Slightly clammy. Moving from states of association to disassociation. In and out of my body. Eyes darting around the room. Bright lights. The buzz of the aircon. Hard plastic chair under my butt. Jiggling my left leg, unconsciously trying to discharge the increasing sense of danger inside me. Keeping it together. Clenching my jaw, muscles in my pelvis, neck and shoulders. All switched on without my knowledge. I don’t want to be here. But I need to be here. I don’t know what is going on inside my body. But I know I need help. I hope this doctor can make me better.
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We all have a certain capacity for connection and relationship. There is an amount of relational charge that we crave, an amount we can safely engage with and an amount that feels like too much. Many times, we can deem a relationship unhealthy because it does not fall within what we interpret as the ‘right amount’ or ‘right kind’ of connection. The other is either ‘not enough’ or ‘too much’.
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It seems as if we are living in ‘a new world’. While a new normal has developed over 4 months, it has also taken us by surprise. Many of us are experiencing feelings of overwhelm and disorientation as well as grieving the loss of ‘the old world’ and the way things were. As I process what this means, I look to my foundations working in the field of complex health and origins of trauma.
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As I sit down to write this, it is as if I can feel all the specks and threads of my traumatised self, twinkling in the deep ocean of my inner universe. My nervous system is lighting up as these fragments say hello to me. And I am reminded of how much I have been through.
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Major Depression, Bipolar, Borderline Personality Disorder, Fibromyalgia, Elhers-Danlos Syndrome, Gardener-Diamond Syndrome. These are some of the diagnosis that were given to me earlier in my life. Each one has been disproved. But gosh, it took a crazy amount of self-work to throw them in the trash
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What is love? I have been musing this lately as my life and relationships shift from something so stable and familiar to what feels like a slide into chaos. I keep asking myself how I feel… but to know what I feel for who, it is important to drill into the nature of love itself.
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If you’re reading this, its likely that you identify as a strong woman or have an interest in understanding why a woman you know is so very strong... Some of us, will resonate instantly with the feeling of having to claw our way through a difficult time, likely when we were much younger.
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