Things You Learn in Therapy
Things You Learn in Therapy
Navigating the Ebb and Flow of Invisible Illness: How to Support Without Judgment
Hey listener, welcome back. I'm your host, dr Beth Tramiel. I'm a psychologist and a professor of psychology at Indiana University East, where I'm also the director of the Masters of Mental Health Counseling Program, and I love getting to record episodes with amazing guests. And we have another amazing guest who is returning again. Is this the third or fourth time? I think this is the second time. I feel like it was twice, like we talked about radical self-care, physical comfort, and then I feel like we talked about chronic illness another time.
Speaker 2:You know, sometimes I just enjoy our conversation so much, just run all together.
Speaker 1:Well, the only reason I know that is because I referenced both of your episodes a lot, because we had sort of this conversation around radicalizing how we interact with our physical comfort, right, and I have always had this message around you know you don't tell people that you're uncomfortable or you know you sit in the chair and you be quiet even if it's like very physically uncomfortable for you. And anyway, whether it's three or four or 10, I will continue to invite you back because I just love everything that you have to share and just enjoy getting to kind of share space with you. And we're getting to talk about chronic illness today and just sort of continuing the conversation around that. I know that's something that you are really passionate about and clinically has kind of become one of your really niche areas to work clinically, and so I'm really excited about this conversation, both from a personal standpoint but also from a professional standpoint. So, victoria, I'm so glad you said yes to coming again. Can you introduce yourself and tell us something about you today?
Speaker 2:So thank you so much again for having me on, beth. My name is Victoria Rodriguez. I'm a licensed professional counselor right outside of New Orleans, louisiana, and a fun fact about myself is, because of my chronic illness, sometimes video games or television shows are the only way to escape, right when, like you're feeling bad in your body and you just need something that you can sink your teeth into. So something fun about myself is I'm currently working with some friends through the video game the Oblivion, remastered one. So I would think that's something that maybe clients don't know. But again, I say, if you're somebody with a chronic illness, sometimes video games are something that are really accessible, where you can still explore without having to use, like, your physical body. So thank you so much again for having me on today. I'm really excited again to share more about my specialty, for us to share stories, stories about our own bodies, our own health, and I'm just really looking forward to that today.
Speaker 1:Okay, so this video game, right, is this something that has always been a passion of yours? Or, like, did you think when you were little, like I'm going to grow up and I'm going to be a part of building a game or revolutionizing a video game, or was this something that you've kind of like, grown into in your adult life?
Speaker 2:So I am a staunch millennial right in the middle of the 90s and my brother and I grew up playing a lot of video games like edutainment I'm trying to think of like what was popular then, like Oregon Trail oh yeah, yeah, so like we were always playing that game, which ironically has a lot of, uh, medical trauma, yes, like any of your oxen were always dying of dysentery.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. So I think that's where I first started and for me it's just always been something that's been accessible. So I will disclose to your audience that I have dysautonomia, hypermobility, mcas, you know, kind of that trifecta, and so sometimes I love to be outside, I love nature, but taking a really big hike or going on a long run isn't always accessible. And so sometimes for me, whether growing up or through grad school or even now, sometimes I know there can be a lot of villainization of video games, but for me that's something that can just be accessible, like for a lot of my clients. I see all of my clients through telehealth. So again, it doesn't work for everybody, but I think for those who are chronically ill or disabled or maybe recovering from a surgery or childbirth, sometimes telehealth can be the only accessible option for them right.
Speaker 1:I love that we're even just starting here, because I do think we have a certain view of people who play video games and it's usually not that those people are also active and healthy in a physical way. That's sort of like the myth or the stereotype or the sort of negative image that I think our culture paints. That it's like oh well, if you're a gamer then you must be just sort of lazy or you must be, you know, avoiding something or I don't know. There's like all these negative messages around it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I really think that's changing fully. In my lifetime, for sure, I've seen the therapeutic geek and gaming summit, so I just took a student to that conference and that's always a fun one. So if you have any listeners who are therapists or who are helpers, that's a really fun conference to go to. It's all virtual. I had a student that wanted to present on God of War, so I've never played that, but that's what he wanted to do and that's what we did, and it was so fun to learn from all of these experts all over the world all about the ways that they bring geek culture into therapy for sure.
Speaker 1:I love that the word geek is sort of growing in. I don't know. Popularity is not the right way, but I think it has turned from being something that is meant to be derogatory into hey look, we're owning this part of us and it doesn't have to be a negative part of who we are.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's such a good point. Even in our conversation about chronic illness, like you even just saying that at one point, that could be seen as a really negative term, and now with my clients we work really hard to turn that into a neutral term. So thank you so much for bringing that up.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I love how we're just like even starting this all out with recognizing how much language matters, and that might be very individualized, so, like some clients may be still very hurt by various language, and so it's still very important to pay attention to how your clients or your friends or the people you love describe whether it's their personality or their parts of them or whether it is their physical health paying attention to how they describe it and then recognizing that that matters.
Speaker 2:Yeah, using the language that that client prefers is so important and I think can just communicate at a very basic level that you're listening.
Speaker 1:When you talk to folks about chronic illness, I think there could even be sort of a very broad understanding of what this term chronic illness means. And so when you talk to clients or you know how do you help people understand what this term chronic illness means?
Speaker 2:So I don't in front of me have a medical definition of how chronic illness or the definition of how we define disability. However, for my clients from a mental health standpoint from a mental health standpoint, we might understand chronic illness as a type of complex medical trauma. Now there's the PTSD and the DSM that I'm sure a lot of your listeners are familiar with. We tend to think of that as like one event, right, like one really traumatic event that leads to your neural pathways in your brain associating that event with negative outcomes leads to your neural pathways in your brain associating that event with negative outcomes.
Speaker 2:However, when you have a chronic illness and you are going through kind of these not to minimize but like little t traumas over and over and over again, it can be a flare up, it can be a negative experience with a medical provider, it can be a hospitalization, it can be a really scary situation where you don't know what's going on in your body, not having that diagnosis. And so the way that I try to explain it to my clients is it might not be one event that led to that trauma, but we can understand it as complex medical trauma. So I think that's the way that I try to define it for my clients, or at least explore that definition with my clients.
Speaker 1:I actually really appreciate that you just shared kind of the definition that you use in kind of conversations with clients. I think all of us could search up what the term chronic illness means according to Webster, but I love hearing from therapists how they have kind of molded that into their experience. Like your clinical experience has taught you how to kind of shift that which we could read on the internet to be meaningful for people in the therapy room. And so I know that you have also been going to other presentations or going to other conferences to present, and you had mentioned earlier that one of the things you sometimes talk about and I have to imagine you also talk about this in therapy too, even one-on-one like are these myths around chronic illness. And so what are some of those myths that you have been talking about or have explored that we might be able to share with listeners?
Speaker 2:I think the biggest one and I would love to hear the feedback from yourself also, as a chronically ill therapist I think the biggest one is that if you have one good day, then it doesn't make sense why you have a bad day the next day or one week and then a bad week the next week, a bad day the next day, or one week and then a bad week the next week.
Speaker 2:It's sometimes like our brains don't remember what it's like when we have a flare up or when we get sick, and so the term that we might use for that is dynamic disability, meaning I know your listeners can't see my one hand is up here and the other hand is down here. One day you might be up here and then the next day you're not, and so I think a myth, especially maybe held by those who are in able bodies, for those who are not chronically ill, is that they can't understand why one day you can be at this level of needing support and then the next day you need a lot of supports. I'm wondering, is that something that you experience yourself or see with your clients or students as well?
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's so interesting that you're starting here because I think there is a lot to unpack about this particular thing, even as I think about my own experience. It is as hard on the person who's experiencing it to have the ups and downs as it might be on the people who are living around the person who's having those ups and downs right. So as much as, like the people around me don't understand why one day is better than another day, I feel like, you know, I'm reminded of when, like my kids were little, in those early days, as a mom and my whole goal in my whole life is to get good sleep every night, like that's just like a chronic, like ongoing goal, forever you know. And so when the kids were really little and we were sleep training right, or we were trying to focus on getting them to get good sleep, it would be like, oh my gosh, they slept through the night. What are we going to do today that we did exactly the same way yesterday so we can get them to sleep through the night?
Speaker 1:And inevitably that next day they would wake up 700 times, you know, mostly between the hours of 2 and 4 am, which I constantly am telling people is like not when Beth Trammell should ever be awake, or like interacting with people or the world between 2 and 4 am.
Speaker 1:But I think about that same thing around chronic illness, right that if it doesn't make sense to the people around you like, hey well, why are you having a good day today, why did you have a bad day yesterday or why are you having a bad day today? The person experiencing those ups and downs feels probably exponentially more frustrated or more confused or more. Yeah, I mean, I just feel like personally, I just feel like frustrated or confused and then some some bit of shame, like, well, what did I do today that has caused this flare that now I am not able to do? Or, you know, I don't feel as well as I could feel today. And so I just think it's so interesting that you're bringing this up as one of the first myths you talk about, because I can imagine there is a lot to unpack.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and thank you for bringing that up, because when I hear that from my clients, right or myself, of what did I do today to cause this flare, up sometimes that self-blame and I might have mentioned it on our last episode again gives us this false sense of control.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we might have controlled something in our bodies or our environments, you know, and when I, when I think about myths that people have about chronic illness, I see this especially with parents, but also individual clients, where sometimes you get that diagnosis and you think my life is over because you don't have any models of what it looks like to manage a chronic illness.
Speaker 2:You don't know what quality of life you can have or what treatment options there are. So maybe your brain replays this narrative that you have of what it means to be sick, when the truth is is that you're probably surrounded by a lot of people who are sick. You just don't know, because we have invisible illnesses as well. I get a lot of teens that'll say I'm the only sick person at my school, or I'm the only person who's dealing with this illness at your school. And I have to. I don't tell them this, but I'm like I promise you're not, because I see five other people from school. So sometimes there can be just that sense of isolation or the myth that you think you're isolated in that, when the reality is so so far from that.
Speaker 1:I really want to come back to this thing that you just mentioned, because I was starting to think, you know, particularly around this idea of diagnosis and it sounds like perhaps that's another myth that we could probably talk through is like, once you get the diagnosis, then you know there's probably a lot of paths that then we believe come next, some of which may be true and some of which may be a myth or expectations that we have that aren't actually true.
Speaker 1:And you kind of mentioned, like you know, I got this diagnosis and now my life is over, and I began thinking too, especially for those like really complex medical conditions, that and I think we kind of talked about this sort of odyssey to find the right diagnosis the last time you were on but I think sometimes we get this diagnosis and then we go back to having a false sense of control where it's like, okay, well, now I know what to call it, and now my doctor has told me what to do, and so then I'm not going to have a flare, I'm not going to have an issue, or if I just do, do, do all the things, and so, yeah, I just think that that's really tricky to figure out how to. You know, all of us feel better when we have this sense of control and when your body is doing things. That sure there are things that we can do to prevent various you know flares or various reactions in our body. I just think sometimes our bodies just do things differently that we don't have as much control over.
Speaker 2:Or think of all of the medical information we'll have in the future and they'll say we can't imagine they never knew what was happening in their bodies. Right, that's such a good point too, like there's so many different ways to respond after that diagnosis. I'm experimenting with running a chronic illness support group for the first time, which has been really rewarding, and something that's come up consistently both with my individual clients and in group is that sometimes you can also feel this intense sense of relief right, maybe other people will get this diagnosis, if you've been searching for that diagnosis, just that sense of relief of oh, I have an answer now. But you're right, sometimes that can be false because it gives us this false sense of comfort or control when really you know you don't know what other comorbidities are going on or you don't know what comes next. And I think that's a really good point, that, especially if you're a family member that's supporting somebody with a chronic illness or friend or acquaintance just the recognition that there can be all kinds of emotional responses to that diagnosis.
Speaker 1:I mean for the person experiencing it and the people they love probably the reaction. There's a lot of emotional reactions.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I remember when I got diagnosed myself just to share some self-disclosure as well I had felt this relief, but also this and also this ah, now I have to follow this protocol. You know I'm going to be able to follow this protocol, so I think there can be a lot of complex feeling around it. And then how to tell family members, figuring out who do you want to tell, how do you want to tell them, do you want to be supported or not treated differently? I think there's a lot of complex emotions that can come up with that.
Speaker 1:So, as we're talking about this, I'm thinking about something that I had shared before we started. Recording is one of the struggles, and you know, whether we call it a myth or we call it a like a, I feel like we've we're calling it like this complexity, Just think we want to simplify everything, and when there are things that happen in your body over and over and over and over and over and over, over a long period of time, it just adds all of these complexities to the relationship, to a person's relationship with their body, to their loved ones, the loved one's reaction to the illness or to the person. And so you know I was sharing.
Speaker 1:One of the other things that has been hard for me is, you know, I've had this sort of chronic itchy rash that no one can seem to figure out what, why it's happening or how to stop it.
Speaker 1:And for me it is, you know, my teenager, so my daughter in particular, will sometimes be like you know, every feels like.
Speaker 1:You know, three to six months or so she'll be like hey, mom, you know how's your itchy legs, you know, and I'm like well, it's not really any different than it was six months ago or two years ago, and she was like well, you don't ever talk about it and I'm like I don't.
Speaker 1:I it's this weird, like I don't know that you get used to it, Cause I don't ever feel like during a flare. I don't feel any better today than I did six years ago when I had a flare, but I also don't know how to describe to the people that love me, that want to support me yeah, it feels as bad today, and maybe more so, because I have all this like complex emotional feeling around it and the fatigue and the psychological aspect of like feeling like I'm a failure because I can't figure out how to solve this problem and I can't find the right doctor and I don't know what to do and the unknown of it, but I don't know how to communicate that day after day, and so that isolation you were talking about I just kind of adds to this complexity. So, anyway, I don't know.
Speaker 2:I've said a lot, Victoria, just Thank you so much for sharing that Cause. I think that's a good point. People will, when you, when you get sick, when you have this filler up, some people might ask well, how do you feel today? Are you feeling better today? And you want to say, no, I feel I'm. I'm still feeling bad, I am still sick. And not to not that it is their fault.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, they're doing this um to to actively harm the sick person yeah yeah, but sometimes I think there can be this bias or this expectation of when you're sick, you get better. Yeah yeah.
Speaker 2:That's just not how it works. With a chronic ill, like it is in the word, it is chronic. This is not something that you heal from. It's certainly something you manage, but it's not something that, yeah, that you ever truly truly get rid of. When you said how do you communicate that to family members, I think you're also fighting again against that expectation that you're sick and you get better and you're not going to have these cycles of just sometimes you are sick. That is just how that works sometimes.
Speaker 1:Because I think it does get at the heart of some of this, like interpersonal complexity around this. When people ask because they care about us, like hey, are you feeling better today, it's almost threaded with hope or expectation. Or because you're right, like when people are sick, our expectation, our like, anticipation, our desire is that we get better. And so that question is really loaded to be like hey, victoria, are you feeling better today? And so you want to say like well, yeah, I feel better, but really maybe I don't. I don't feel better, and so like that's a very complex question for a person. Like I think it's, I think in particular worded that way right, like are you feeling better today is a complex way to sort of ask this question, and so one I'm curious what your thoughts are on that. But then also like is there a better, is there a better supportive statement or question a person could make.
Speaker 2:You know when I I want to address the first part. That's so true. I have a lot of clients that will feel this expectation to perform health. Yes, push past pain to push past discomfort.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:To perform as if they are a healthy person. Yep, and sometimes that's just not the reality. And what that can do is then it creates kind of this echo chamber and we're all expected to perform health all the time. And so I think that's a really interesting point that you bring up. And when I think of the second question of how to support someone, maybe is there a better question I don't know about you, I get that question from students a lot. So I teach counseling and I'll have students that will ask well, what if I say the wrong thing, or what am I supposed to say when this person is so sad or so traumatized? What's the right protocol? And I'll inform them.
Speaker 2:What we know from the research is the most powerful thing like, yes, there are quote unquote brighter things you can say than others From the research.
Speaker 2:The most powerful thing you can do sometimes for somebody who's in pain is just to show up physically, emotionally, energetically, is to just be with them in community.
Speaker 2:And so when you are trying to support a loved one who is sick or a loved one who's in pain, sometimes even just saying something simple like I am here for you, like physically sitting with them and saying you know I'm going to sit with you, you know, as long as you need, or asking them what kind of support do you need, or you're going into this big procedure how can I support you through that. Not asking do you need support, but even just asking them how can I support you, gives them the opportunity to answer that in a way where that person individually can feel supported. And it's also important to know that they might not know right. When you're in pain it's really hard to be there cognitively to think through all the ways that you need support, and that's okay. It's okay if they don't know how to feel supported. Even just you asking the question can communicate to that person that you care about them and that their comfort matters to you.
Speaker 1:I was kind of talking with a colleague about their person was going through some medical testing or medical procedures and they were kind of like, well, I can't take off work to go to every appointment with them. And so I'm trying to decide, like, which appointments are the right appointments to go to. You know, the ones where we're like getting news or we're getting results. I'm definitely taking those days off, but it's hard to. It's hard to balance right. Like, if your loved one has lots of medical appointments, it requires a lot of daytime hours. I mean that's just sort of the truth of particularly if you're seeing a lot of daytime hours. I mean that's just sort of the truth of particularly if you're seeing a lot of appointments or specialists. And so I began thinking about this, as we've been talking like how does a loved one, how might a loved one kind of balance that I want to show up, I want to be there and I don't want to oof? Okay, Well, I'm just going to say what I'm thinking and maybe there's a listener, who's-.
Speaker 2:Let's go for it.
Speaker 1:How do you not build resentment to be like well, I am extra stressed if I have to leave work early for this appointment. I want to be there for you, but I don't want to feel stressed and I don't want it to turn into resentment not at a person, though sometimes that can be a slippery slope right Like I resent the fact that you are going through these procedures. I hate that you have to go through this and I want to be able to support you, but I feel this real conflict around. Yeah, balancing the work and support of that, support of that.
Speaker 2:That's such a good question. I'm just sitting with that for a minute and I I think I come back to what you said is the fault doesn't lie with the individual. But I think if you're that, that caretaker, that support person, I think first and foremost recognizing it was never supposed to look like this for you so difficult to work 40 hours a week and be the caretaker Even if you don't work.
Speaker 2:It is difficult to be a caretaker where you can only go to appointments within certain hours or you have to fit all of that. And I think as we've gotten more individualized as a society and we have less of that community support not in all populations but certain populations is that it becomes so much more difficult to do caretaking even when you really want to do that caretaking, because we don't have a lot of systems to support you. Even the medical experience of giving birth, you know you're not guaranteed time off to help a friend or to help a partner through that process. And so I think it's first and foremost to acknowledge that your feelings are not to put it bluntly, you're not crazy it's that these systems are so difficult to work around to do the caretaking and supporting. And I think maybe also there's a power in acknowledging your feelings.
Speaker 2:I think maybe if there's a denial and Dr Trimella, you can add to this as well, because I'm curious to hear, I'm always curious to hear, like, how other therapists approach this but I think there's a certain power in acknowledging I might feel some resentment because maybe there's some denial of that resentment and there can be complex feelings, maybe going caretaking for somebody, how it affects the relationship. But maybe that starts a conversation of well, how do you need support? Where is your community that you can rely on? Which, again I think, is the importance of finding a really good, solid support group for caretakers if you have access to one. But kind of curious to hear what comes up for you too with that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean I just can imagine the beauty of this conversation in the right kind of safe space between two people who are going through a chronic illness together, and I love what you said, that we start perhaps with the acknowledgement and kind of honoring that this isn't what I thought this was going to be. You know, it was never supposed to look like this for you and for both of us to say like it wasn't supposed to look like this. This is not how I envisioned our happily ever after. You know, and even if you're not married or in a long term relationship, even in short term relationships, you nobody goes into relationships being like, yeah, one of us is going to really be struggling. It's like we come into this being like, oh, wow, look at all the rainbows and sunshine that's ahead of us.
Speaker 1:I can imagine some of the conversations in a safe place to be vulnerable, where we can kind of admit what you said, like there's a lot of power in acknowledging those feelings instead of just pretending like, no, I'm not angry. That we have to go to another appointment at 10 o'clock in the morning when that's like at the heart of my busiest time at my job Doesn't mean that I resentful of you, but I have to acknowledge those feelings and I think it might take a really a really safe space, whether it's with a therapist or a trusted friend who can kind of mediate, having this conversation so it doesn't turn into blaming or isolation of either, either person. But I think that could be such a powerful conversation to say, hey, there's power in acknowledging these feelings here.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and what you said earlier too, we have this bias of health to relationships, or we have this bias that I'm making this assumption that we will stay healthy for the remainder of these relationships, when the reality is it's a question of when, not if we get sick. Right, if we're lucky enough to live long enough, statistically we are going to get sick, and so I think approaching it in that way too, so that you're not feeling this resentment or disappointment, really, really understanding that it's a question of when one or both of us get sick. So so I love that point about there can be this health bias that we have if we're always going to be healthy when that's just not the reality, and making sure that you have access to again either some type of relationship therapy or relational therapy to process this with the caretaker and the sick person, and building your support system, actively building your support system. One thing I like to do and I know we're coming up on time, but I'll have my clients take out their phone and you know how you can do like different emergency contacts, we will add different contacts for different type of support.
Speaker 2:If you need logistical support, is there an uncle or aunt that you can call If you need emotional support, if you need logistical support, is there an uncle or aunt that you can call? If you need emotional support, can you call your mom or your partner? If you need help putting together taxes because you're having a brain fog episode and you can't get that done, can you add the CPA to that list and so we might break down. You might not be able to get all types of support from one person, but what types of support can you get, and can we physically put that into your phone, onto your contact sheet, so that you can even visibly see all the ways in which you're supported? So that's just one tool, a very concrete tool that I use with my clients.
Speaker 1:I love that. I love that as an exercise, I love that as a statement. You said like we may not get all types of support from one person. I love that reminder that having a team I think we all kind of know like, yeah, I got to have a team of support, I got to have a village that you know supports me, or whatever. But actually thinking very logistically, like if I needed somebody to make dinner for me or my family, who would be the person I called? If I needed somebody to step in and take a kid to practice, who would I call? I just think there's such real, tangible value in really thinking through what are my limitations on a day where I'm not well? And then who do I know in my circle who would love to help support me?
Speaker 2:Yeah, and then it turns, when you have a flare up, something that could have been a crisis into a protocol, a checklist. Having a flare up, I know exactly what to do, I know who to call for support, I know how to support myself, and it takes something again. I think that could have been really dysregulating into something that you have a plan for. That's a really good point.
Speaker 1:So good, maybe we well, I'm going to ask you one more question and then, if there's anything else that comes up for you, I would you know, as we kind of wrap up, I'm thinking about a loved one, of a person who is maybe having that bad day and I'm thinking through the myriad of responses that that person could do and I'm just wondering what tools you maybe have offered to loved ones, and then I'll share kind of what I was thinking as asking this and then you can kind of reframe.
Speaker 1:But I'm picturing the person who I'll use in my life in my example, right?
Speaker 1:So my husband cooks, or he is in charge of making breakfast. It's kind of become our, you know, separation of tasks and he makes breakfast for the kids every morning and, just hypothetically, if he were to wake up and be not able to do that today because he was having a bad day, I could imagine I'd have an opportunity for a myriad of responses, whether that's emotional or cognitive. And so I'm grumbling as I'm getting out of bed and I'm opening the cabinets in the kitchen to get things, or maybe I am offering support and, you know, allowing the kids space to help, support also, whatever that might look like. But I'm just wondering if you have those sort of recommendations that you often make for folks and you know again whether it's emotional or cognitive or behavioral or attachment focus, whatever they kind of are for those loved ones, in kind of those immediate moments in receiving a message like today's not a great day, and then how do we like continue in that relationship even beyond that kind of immediate moment and even into the next moments or hours?
Speaker 2:So in that immediate moment, this is such a good case because it happens all the time. It's so real. I'm wondering if it would be helpful to, first and foremost, if you're feeling dysregulated you've just gotten that news from your partner to make a list mentally, write it down, whatever you have to do, of things within your control in this moment and things out of your control at this moment.
Speaker 2:So maybe within your control is you have the energy to take out some cereal and some milk. Maybe out of your control is if the kids are going to eat it. So I wonder if first exploring what is within your control, because then you can let go of things that are not your responsibility, or letting go of expectations for yourself but also for loved ones, and being able to have that flexibility can be such a gift, I think, to yourself as well.
Speaker 1:I love that and I'm curious if you also recommend, like I mean, it would seem natural based on you know I love you said we could turn a crisis into a protocol. I wonder if that same thing is, you know, a conversation outside of the crisis where you're talking with both folks about like hey, so what would happen in this situation, what would you do, how would you feel and and what would be kind of your next steps as a team together so that we can turn this crisis into just a protocol?
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely, and I always say it's so much easier to add accommodations to your environment than it is to change your brain.
Speaker 2:I would wonder if, as a couple, what could you guys come up with as an accommodation for when that happens? Does that mean ordering extra breakfast you can put in the freezer? Does it mean having easier options or having maybe some money put away so that people can buy breakfast on the way? And I know I was just thinking like within this example? But I wonder what accommodations could be put in place again to make that not a crisis but a protocol for when someone gets sick, right, Because it's a question of when they're going to get sick, especially with young kids, right? So I think that's a great question.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. I just love these really tangible recommendations Always. I know you just are always so good at doing that, so any last things that you're like. You know, this is kind of my take home message, or this is something I was thinking about and I didn't get to share.
Speaker 2:When I think about this conversation that we've had today that I'm so grateful for, what's standing out to me is that it's so much more helpful to get curious than it is to get drawn into that blame spiral. And I get it. It's so easy to get there, whether you're a chronic ill or you're supporting someone with a chronic illness.
Speaker 2:But I think the way that you just described it, of getting curious about what's going on, of, hey, what's happening, how can we make this a protocol? What came up for you? What emotions are coming up for you, I think it's so much more helpful to get curious rather than to fall in that blame spiral of why is my body not cooperating? What did I do wrong? What did we do wrong? And so I think that can shift us from a place of self blame to a place of actual problem solving, of asking the right questions. So I think that's my takeaway from you today. It's a good one.
Speaker 1:I love that and I'm like almost picturing. You know, in couples work there's always this like are we leaning in? Are we kind of drifting apart? And as we talk about relationships today, whether that's a romantic relationship, it's a long-term partner, it's a short-term partner, it's a family relationship I think the message that I continue to hear from both of us is that the person who is sort of in this chronic illness space always wants us to, always wants the relationship to feel like you're leaning in instead of drifting away. And that doesn't mean I always want you like all up in my grits, right, but it means like I want to feel supported by you, and sometimes that varies from moment to moment what that looks like, and part of the onus is on me to be able to communicate that. But also that I love the encouragement to be curious, because I do think that curiosity instead of judgment does always feel more like leaning in than drifting away.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely agree.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Well, look Victoria. So how do people follow you, know about you and and all of the work that you do.
Speaker 2:Sure, so you can find me at revive practicecom. I am licensed in Louisiana and Florida currently, so I support clients who are chronically ill or undergone some type of medical trauma and, additionally, if you are a therapist or a helper, you can find me on Instagram at the home based therapist, and that's where I talk a little bit about my life as a chronically ill therapist who gets to work from the comfort of home. So thank you so much for having me today. This was a pleasure, as always.
Speaker 1:I mean you're just so good. I mean I always say at the end like I just love getting to interview and getting to talk to people who are just so like, naturally just lovely to be around. I just get very energized by these conversations. So I am grateful for your yes, I'm grateful for you listener also, who kind of checks in week after week and sometimes, when I can't get to it every week, I'm just grateful that you follow along and share with people, if any of these things really matter to you too. So thank you for saying yes, thank you for being here and until next time, stay safe, stay well and not necessarily feel better, but just continue to be well in whatever state. That is so excellent. Ciao, everyone.
