The Retelling

How many times have you told your story to a professional?
The story of your chronic pain?
When I say ‘told your story’,
I mean fully and unabridged to the point of what is reasonable.
When I say ‘professional’,
I mean someone in the holistic or allopathic field whose job it is to help/treat//support/listen to you.

How many times have you been given a chance to do this?

I was thinking of this again the other day, going through a series of treatments with someone new
and I told my story again.
We tell our story again, because the person treating us needs to know, in order to treat us the right way.
We tell our story again, because someone might need a reminder.
We tell our story again, because we wish to be understood and acknowledged.

It is necessary and often comforting, but can also be very difficult to tell your story over and over again.
It can be hard because it functions as a trigger; we relive the memories,trauma and pain again and again.
It can be awkward, frustrating, infuriating and anxiety inducing when the person we are talking to is not listening, belittes, misunderstand and rushes you, while you are at your most vulnerable.

A few examples of situations with new ‘professionals/'(or familiar ones who need a reminder)

Situation 1.
You come to your doctor and you are eager to tell your story once more. They need to know these facts in order to proceed correctly. Let’s say you have a specific nerve pain, meaning you cannot be touched on your face/head/scalp.
The doctor makes no eye-contact and looks on his laptop while you are trying to give as much information as possible.
You feel rushed as he does not look at you, but does glance at the clock several times.

Situation 2.
You go to a physical therapist for the first time and you are expecting this first appointment to be an assessment only.
You look forward to telling your story and have written down a few bullet points in order not to forget the most important things.
You start talking and follow your bullet points but the therapist quickly tells you that you have to lie down so they can do an assessment.
Before you can resist, they immidiately begin speaking about your posture and start a deep tissue massage, without having listened to the briefest version of your story and concerns, completely disregarding your fears and sensitisation due to years of chronic pain, resulting in a ‘freeze-reaction’ due to trauma (inability to refuse the treatment) and weeks of extreme after pain. ‘

Situation 3.
You visit a new dentist, dreading you won’t get enough time to even briefly touch upon the crucial parts of your story that NEED to be addressed before treatments can start.
You have had too many bad experiences (or exclusively) and don’t have much faith that it will be different this time.
To your surprise, the dentist listens patiently, the dental nurses listen. They sympathise with your situation and condemn the ‘professionals’ who treated you so badly.
You are treated gently and with respect. In spite of your trauma’s and the unpleasant treatments, you even feel somewhat at ease.

I know you have been in these situations. They have happened to me. Mostly the first two, unfortunately, but I have experienced the third one as well.

We cannot control the unprofessional ‘professionals’. The rude, disrespectful, imhumane approach of some.

What we can do is start to do the work on ourselves to learn to speak our mind as much as we can and stop accepting inferior behaviour and hold them accountable and to the appropriate standard.
It is a challenging task, but we are worth it.
If we all did this, the unprofessionals would be out of business.

To most medical fields, I would say,
avoid as much as possible.
Sometimes it is what it is.
They don’t have much time for you.
They have too many patients.
Some fields attract narcissists.
Not only in the allopathic, I have seen in it in the holistic field as well. Less, but yes.

Make a tiny step.
I replay situations in my mind, so I can change them next time.
-I was caught off guard. I felt intimidated- (as we often do with ‘professionals’)
Next time, I will not cooperate with a treatment if it is too soon/against my will/not what I expected.
It’s a commitment to self ♡

Which tiny step to start with is yours?

Retell your story and reclaim your space and your health ♡

Much love ♡ ♡