Wounds

We see it it all the time.  The patient has a heart that gets diseased.  The patient neglects the injury or avoids taking care of it – maybe out of disbelief, maybe out of shame.  The damage gets bigger and larger until the patient decompensates.  There are trips back and forth to the hospital, to providers: there are medications and maybe devices.  Functionality may be curtailed.  The wound is now in charge of this person’s life.  

What about wounds to a person’s emotional “heart”?

What happens to the sadness, anger, fear, pain we avoid?  What about the unaddressed traumas or the non-functioning thought narratives that make us suffer more?  Do we numb it with work, or alcohol, or sex/shopping/social media?   Do we develop coping strategies that pull us away from the nourishment of love and support that we might otherwise have?  Do we fail to develop the healthy boundaries and self-care behaviors that would otherwise pull us out of the unhealthy situations/thoughts/feelings?

Our most challenging patients are a great example of the wounds being in charge.  Their lives have been up-ended.  They have strong emotions and responses. Frequently, we don’t allow patients to safely experience the full range of their emotions and concerns. We hand them tissues or some other distraction.  The patient may lose the experience of processing their full experience and transcending it.   

When the emotions have not been honored, and the wounds are in charge, we watch our patients refuse to engage in treatments that we have seen work many times.  We experience them engaging in behaviors that keep them out of relationship with the staff – relationship that could otherwise be experienced as nourishing and supportive.  Viewed in this light, our most challenging patients are great teachers.

What can they teach us?  

If we have learned nothing else from this past year, it’s that we are warriors on the front lines. Our job is to beat back plague and death.  As providers, we have learned through our training and experience to moderate and manage our emotions.  We learn to tolerate a wide range of situations in health care. 

But like all warriors, we get hurt too.  Usually the wound is invisible.  Often the pain is invisible.  We may feel that we have been taught that getting wounded is our job and that showing the feeling is “unprofessional.”  So maybe we ignore the wound – avoid the painful feelings – come to work with an increasingly broken heart and spirit.  Perhaps we smoke or drink a bit more, get a little short-tempered, or just teach ourselves to feel less and less. But going numb is too high a price: less pain, perhaps – but also less love, less joy.  Less anger, but also less compassion.  Eventually, our wounds are in charge and they own us.  They separate us from the joy of our jobs and the love of our families.  

Instead, honor your wounds.

Take time to fully acknowledge, experience and process your wounds. As providers, your wounds are honestly earned on the front lines of life and death, in moments of magnificent humanity.  Give full expression safely to your experience and feelings, and allow your wounds to be salved and bound in the love and compassion of your colleagues and loved ones.  Our wounds are badges of honor from fighting the best of fights.  

Need a little extra help? Then seek out the healing assistance you need. Get help from mental health providers for your broken heart… just like you would for heart disease.  Because when we fail to heal, integrate and transcend our wounds – eventually they own us. But when we honor them, and take sound measures to heal, we come through stronger, richer, better people than we were before.