Breaking Free: My Triumph Over Invisible Pain to Embrace Health and Happiness
I’m a highly sensitive person who was misunderstood as a child and called out as the family wimp. As a mildly adventurous 6 year old, I was sliding down the staircase on a mattress one day and I got a “great” idea - I decided to go backwards! I got scared midway and when I tried to turn around, I ended up doing a backwards summersault and slamming my foot into the wall. I had horrible pain in my toe afterwards but no one believed that I was really hurt. X-rays later showed that I had actually cracked my toe. I know what it’s like to be misunderstood.
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In my teens I developed pain in my hips and knees. Doctors couldn’t find the cause. After working during the summer, I would collapse on the sofa after work, in pain and exhaustion. On yet another doctor’s appointment to try to find relief, the doctor asked my mom to leave the room and then demanded that I stop pretending because I was obviously fine and just making it up. I also suffered from a compulsive eating disorder around that time, keeping me stuck in a cycle of anxiety and self-loathing. I know what it’s like to be dismissed by medical professionals.
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I’ve sprained my ankle more times that I can count. But the episode that started in 2020 was the worst. After 6 months, it still wasn’t healed. I went for MRIs, more physical therapy. It improved and then got worse again. Doctors were confused. Their only suggestion was exploratory surgery and cutting my calf muscles because they were tight. (Yes, you can echo me in a what the ???). I continued my search and tried as many other modalities as I could – osteopaths, Bowen massage, energy healing, more physical therapy…. Nothing worked and as my pain got worse and I resorted to crutches as the only way to reduce the pain. I was on crutches for 6 months.
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I lived alone at the time and it was so hard to do things. I put an office chair in my kitchen to roll from the fridge to microwave to sink and had to hire help for cooking. I put a chair in the shower. But the worst thing was the stairs. I lived on the second floor of a building with no elevator so whenever I went out, I had to sit on my butt and lift myself up and down each step, dragging the crutches behind me. It was embarrassing when people like my boss insisted on helping me, having them watch me crawl on the gross, dirty floor. I know what it’s like to feel helpless and hopeless.
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What helped me recover was a multidisciplinary approach to holistic wellbeing. I learned about neuroplastic pain, pain that is caused by a nervous system imbalance, rather than just a physical issue. This was confirmed by a knowledgable orthopedic surgeon. I used mindfulness, congnitive coaching, stress management, and emotional processing techniques to help my nervous system rebalance. Combined with about a year of physical rehab due to the weakness caused by the prolonged use of crutches, I’m now able to walk, hike and dance again pain-free and I’m so grateful every day! I know what it takes to overcome chronic pain and disability!
On a rare outing to have dinner with friends during my time on crutches, March 2022.
Thanks to Holistic Coaching, I'm so happy to be able to dance again!
​Are you ready to overcome chronic pain?
Chronic pain is often more than just a physical issue. There are also mental, emotional and habitual components. A holist approach to living well with chronic pain includes medical professionals who understand chronic pain holistically and can help us with the diagnostic component, physical treatment that restores strength and mobility, and Holistic Coaching to help us regulate our nervous system to break the stress-pain cycle and remove other emotional patterns that contribute to pain.
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The Holistic Coaching model I created combines mindfulness, congnitive coaching, stress management, and emotional processing techniques to help rebalance the nervous system.