Life with chronic illness, especially a progressive, life-threatening illness like mitochondrial disease can be very challenging for anyone who has not personally been impacted by it to understand. This includes even trained therapists, who receive a lot of training in many things in their curriculum, but the direct cognitive effects of certain illnesses, and the ongoing emotional affects of living a life challenged by chronic illness, is not much of a focus in their training.
Therapists however, when chosen carefully can be incredibly helpful to living life with chronic illness, however in my 10+ years utilizing the adjunctive support of therapists while living with my chronic illness, I have found that some can actually do more harm than good.
One huge aspect overlooked by the average therapist is that people with chronic seizures medical issues often end up with a form of PTSD known as CPTSD or complex, ptsd. This is often not properly recognized and diagnosed, which can not only make matters worse for the person, but other suggest treatment modalities may actually make matters worse.
I suggest seeking out a therapist who specifically has experience with patients with chronic illnesses, and who have interest in it, ‘specialize’ in this area. If you go to psychologytoday.com you can search for therapist by various conditions and chronic illness is listed as an option. I then recommend asking for a brief ‘interview’ with a few therapists before deciding on moving forward with one, just like any other relationships in life some people you simple just won’t ‘click’ with, and others you will… it is worth making this additional effort to try to help find the right therapist for you before expelling so much time and precious energy and money.
Σχόλια