Step Six: Employ Help
We talked about important principles of finding help a bit in the first post of this series “Know your Enemy'', but ask anyone far enough along in a chapter of healing from dis-ease and they’ll tell you that finding the right mix of help for you is often a years long process. Remember don’t hesitate to fire and search again, no matter how long it takes. Also remember, self-education is more valuable than the opinions of others when they are offered to an uneducated mind. And while I still stand behind my statements that you will come to know a lot more about your condition than any single practitioner by the time you find ones who you believe in enough to keep, I think it is also important to point out that no matter how advanced your journey becomes, it remains immeasurably valuable to maintain a team devoted to your improvement.
While no one knows your story like you do, members of your health support team will know certain aspects in ways your friends and family will never understand. You will have people to discuss topics and perspectives with far beyond what your normal social circles will be able to hold space for, or be willing to put up with... even if your social circles are doctors, health coaches, medical students, and athletes. I know that from personal experience. Don’t get so self conscious. Its not that people in your life don’t care or are judgmentally assuming you are complaining just for discussing your journey through adversity.
99.9% of people -no matter their line of work- are rattled by the topic of health-related-anything. It has become a taboo in Western Sociology. In plain sight but smothered in so much pain and discomfort for everyone you know that to be confronted with even casual details of someone else’s health brings about a subconscious firestorm of insecurities. Yes this is true even of most health professionals. No matter how far into dis-ease you are, if you express you know something more about it ‘than you should’ or are doing more about it than most ever do, you will frighten people off.
This is not the case in a professional setting. That is why the relationships with your healthcare team are so valuable. Not solely for their opinions but for their ability to hear you, and interest in wanting to listen. You invest in them so you have someone who is invested in you. That is who you share your details with. These people are who you need if you never want to feel alone in your fight. If you have five doctors right now and none of them hear you when you speak, grab your money and run. They are only doing 20% of their job. Collaboration is everything. A real doctor patient relationship should feel like a professional friendship.
A visit should have a tempo much like two long time business partners and golf buddies meeting up for brunch. There is mutual respect and admiration, a true sense of caring and wanting to catch up, but also the task at hand and the topics that need discussed are clear before you even walk in the door. You learn from each other. They help you track progress and organize your plans for treatment, you help them through the gaining of experience in their approach. A good practitioner’s methods are never, ever written in stone, they are always thinking critically, gaining efficiency with each case they help on. Always expanding on their conceptualization of the infinite factors at play in each condition as it uniquely presents the human system. You are not part of their job, you are part of their education, and the good ones know that. They are proud of it. You know who they are. Hold onto them as I have. You will be forever grateful for not settling, as I am.
Thank you for reading. You are Loved. Reach out if you need help or want someone to discuss these concepts with.