If you are, what are you doing with the information?
The truth is, though, that most people do not listen to their body – until it’s too late.
Yesterday my gut and my head joined forces to tell me to take a complete day off. In retrospect, I have had something I “had to do” every day for over a year. There have been times I didn’t feel great, but didn’t really listen. Yesterday I did. I should have listened every time, but I’m still a work in progress.
In early 2016, I had the flu, recovered, went back to work and then in February I developed Shingles. Weird for a healthy, active person such as me.
The worse was yet to come. I developed the post-Shingles nerve condition called postherpetic neuralgia – one of the most painful conditions known. It feels as if you’re being stabbed with a bayonet every few seconds 24 hours a day.
Did that stop me? Heck no. I was “strong”. I could “handle it” – or so I thought. As the months went on, I became suicidal and more withdrawn. I couldn’t imagine existing like this for years.
Did I change my behavior or look any deeper than the external pain? Of course not. I had the ringer on my body’s telephone set to off – not even to vibrate. So, I didn’t even realize I was being sent a message.
[Oh wow, as I was writing this, I realized another factor in this nightmare two years that I hadn’t realized before].
In March 2017 I was admitted to the hospital and ended up hospitalized for 5 weeks total (3 different hospitalizations). I almost died. I won’t bore you with that long story but I ended up out of work for 3 months. Another realization I just had – of the 7 conditions I developed, 6 were caused by the hospital or some treatment I had – external causes (a parallel to my life).
The good things that resulted from this were:
1) I ended up getting rid of the post herpetic neuralgia (for a year and a half and then it came back but that led to further important discoveries).
2) I had definitely received this wake up call.
The day I went back to work was the day after the two people who had been creating more stress than I’d ever experienced left. How’s that for coincidence.
I was able to recognize that I had been under greater stress than I ever did as an ER doc. That’s pretty significant. My childhood was not one that taught me how to handle and manage stress in a healthy manner. These two people plus the horrible cancer trek of my best friend was creating the pressure cooker inside of me. Since I couldn’t recognize what was happening internally – I definitely knew what was happening externally and felt powerless to do anything about it. If you’ve ever been involved in the Civil Service system, you know what I mean. The pressure cooker finally burst. I didn’t have the ability/skills to deal with each stressor as it came along. So, they were all buried until there was no more “room in the inn” and the top blew.
My body had been talking to me for at least a year (and probably longer) before I would even listen to it. And, I only listened because I was really forced to – almost dying will do that to you. The weeks I was home recovering gave me the opportunity to evaluate what was going on in my life and more importantly, what I wanted to do about it.
Don’t let that happen to you. If it already has, make definite plans to mitigate it from happening again. Start with two great books – “When the Body Says NO” by Gabor Mate and “The Body Keeps the Score” by Bessel van der Kolk. Don’t just take my word for it. Stress may be behind many of the conditions you’re dealing with now.
