As we share our experiences, we relate, laugh, cry, bang our fists against the wall, adapt, reorganize, and accept the new path our lives have taken. I direct this post to these new found friends who may be surprised to find how a physical injury deeply effects our emotional well-being and psychological health. The loss of function is akin to deep grief; suddenly, the way we defined ourselves prior to injury no longer exists. Whether you define yourself as a long-distance runner, competitive cyclist, avid climbers or hiker, leisure sports enthusiast, or any occupation with significant physical demands, our mental health is intricately woven with physical loss.
Here's the short of it: on Thursday, I lost it. My left hip hurt, my right hamstring (the good one) was feeling the extra load of 2 months of compensatory work. My baby was needy, wanting to be held all day (which strained my lower back) and wouldn't nap unless touching my body. The utter exhaustion of the day triggered the fear of returning to work (still over a month away). To top it off, my strong-willed 6 year old dished out the evening home-work challenge and my husband and I were on completely different parenting wavelengths. I felt an inner rage and fury well up inside of me. My head was dizzy with anger and perceived helplessness. I had 2 options in the moment: completely blow my top with an angry outburst like a two-year-old, or lock myself in my bedroom and disengage. I chose the latter, which though the better option, solved nothing and left me with a fitful night of anxious insomnia.
Friday morning, the anger continued when I couldn't find the receipt to return a pair of $8.00 shoes that were too small for my 6 year old daughter. Eight dollars. My eight dollar temper tantrum. My sweet toddler sat on the floor of the living room watching mommy huff around in anger looking for a stupid receipt and began to cry. She was completely beside herself, a little sponge soaking up mommy's emotional state. If I could put words into that cry, it was a little like this: "But mommy, where are you? I am always safe with you and now you are gone. You are here, but you are gone. I'm sad because I don't know how to feel safe right now when you are so upset." I picked her up and cried with her. I nursed her down to a nap and promptly texted Barry that I was completely losing my shit. He suggested I take the evening off and leave the house and he would take the girls, if that was what I needed to do. It was exactly what I needed to clear the fog.
Here's the thing. I got through this brief emotional crisis with a combination of family support, shared experience of my cyber-hamstring friends, and my antidepressant medication. It is so important to recognize the toll that physical injury can take on our mental health. If there was anything lingering before the injury, such as a baseline clinical depression like I have, it will require twice the attention and effort with the stress and ramifications of physical injury.
As I confer with my cyber-hamstring buddies, I hear a common rationalization when talking about their injury. I am have said it myself that "Others have it much worse than I do". This can be a good tool to give us big-picture perspective, but it can also disallow us to experience the grief that comes along with a serious injury. It is NORMAL for the marathon runner to grieve not being able to run. It is NORMAL for the rock climber to grieve not being able to climb. It is NORMAL for any athlete to grieve the unknown if, when, and to what capacity they will be able to return to sport. It is NORMAL for the bedside nurse to grieve the inability to return to a physically demanding yet rewarding work environment. It is NORMAL for a caregiver, now acutely injured, to feel overwhelmed and misunderstood if they are the one who usually cares for a loved one with chronic pain or other chronic health problems. It is not self-pity to feel angry about the situation. We are not weak for admitting that life just got a lot harder!
I would like to challenge myself, my cyber-hamstring buddies, or anyone facing a serious injury, to absolve ourselves of the guilt of grieving loss of function, even if temporary. Discounting the emotional component of physical injury because "others" have it worse off doesn't help when it's your body it's happening to. When we embrace the loss, we can begin to see that our identity is not what we do, but who we are inside. This goes beyond the trite cliche of making lemonade from lemons. It is more like realizing you were not necessarily a lemon to begin with. Pardon the fruity metaphor, but if you see yourself as a fruit bowl and not just the lemon inside of it, there are a lot more possibilities than simply making lemonade!
It is hard physically and emotionally. And that is okay.
I would like to challenge myself, my cyber-hamstring buddies, or anyone facing a serious injury, to absolve ourselves of the guilt of grieving loss of function, even if temporary. Discounting the emotional component of physical injury because "others" have it worse off doesn't help when it's your body it's happening to. When we embrace the loss, we can begin to see that our identity is not what we do, but who we are inside. This goes beyond the trite cliche of making lemonade from lemons. It is more like realizing you were not necessarily a lemon to begin with. Pardon the fruity metaphor, but if you see yourself as a fruit bowl and not just the lemon inside of it, there are a lot more possibilities than simply making lemonade!
It is hard physically and emotionally. And that is okay.
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