The Right To Care For Yourself: How to Integrate the Body and Mind

A bed in a garden offering sanctuary for person who wants to heal.

For people with C-PTSD, the right to care for oneself can be a confusing subject. When kindness has been weaponised, it is hard to discern what is kind or indifferent. This study seeks to underline the importance of the integration of the body and mind as the ingredients to enable healing. 

 In previous posts, I spoke of how my body has realised the impact of enduring a lifetime of unseen trauma, resulting in chronic pain without answers. It is doing exactly what it needs to do; it is flexing its right to be seen and to be taken care of.

People with C-PTSD often struggle to receive care. Kindness has been weaponised, making it hard to trust support, even when offered. When the body demands attention, medical support becomes essential, whether it’s calling an ambulance or advocating for better pain medication or even providing rest.

It takes a lot for me to ask for help.  I’ve learned to shoulder pain alone, but recent family experiences with the medical system have shown me that health science is advancing rapidly. We’re in an age of transformation, leading to possible recoveries for many more. Sometimes, you must trust qualified professionals and science.
 

The Background:

A couple of years ago, I nearly died from a ruptured gallbladder. A delayed surgery left a bile leak, and within 24 hours, I was back in the hospital. My pain medication tolerance was misinterpreted as drug addiction, leading to a traumatic experience of being trapped in a body that I believe was dying. I only survived because of the eventual recognition of my condition by a doctor who wore yellow sunflower scrubs, who alerted others to the fact that my life was in danger. This resulted in emergency surgery and 14 days in hospital to recover. I was left so angry that someone’s assumption about me could have made my daughter motherless. A trauma I desperately needed to stop. Every child needs a mother.

I am not sure whether I ever fully recovered from that experience.  My body continues to speak through pain, and I struggle to ask for help. My life script is that people only notice me when really bad things happen. My body hurts from the pressure of keeping life going. I’m a mother, psychotherapist, wife, business owner, homeowner, friend, and these roles carry weight and responsibility, and I can’t put them down. As they will fall like dominoes if I let one of them go.

At the same time, I’m regressing, and I am burnt out. Finally, I call the doctor, and my husband drives me there. The doctor provides the care I desperately need, prompting a series of tests and specialist interactions. The medical system’s fragmented approach makes healing harder, as each doctor only looks at one part of you. So, I remain in pieces and disembodied.

What Has Changed:
 
This past weekend, I was back in the emergency room, exhausted from it. They saw me mid-flare-up, where I looked like a statue, with just my hands shaking and my body bent forward, trying to release stored energy without success. They doubled my pain relief and gave me an anti-inflammatory injection. The next day, I saw an advert for a body worker/naturopath, and I booked a session without hesitating. I need care and can’t wait for the next specialist appointment.

The booking was confirmed, and at the same time, my vascular specialist fast-tracked my appointment. This experience reminded me of my right to receive care and the cumulative impact of taking a step towards being vulnerable and being honest with myself about what I need. At the same time, I have been discerning in accepting the limitations of medical testing and not letting that reduce me to ‘not feeling good enough’. If this person can’t help me. I will find someone who will. I do not want to be investigated in parts. I want to be seen and accepted in my humanness, a whole person, embodied and ready to take on the journey that is ahead.

 

Relational Needs:

In this, I am accountable, but in the rest, I am not. I can feel the pain, but I cannot work out where it is coming from on my own, and that is okay. That is how it should be. I can’t be expected to hold it all, and yet somehow, I felt it was truly my burden, and not to burden others. Yet, pain, whether emotional or physical, does impact me. Therefore, it will impact others and move them to care in whatever way their capacity allows. It is a human need to access care and to be able to discern how we feel about the care we receive and to make changes if it no longer suits, whether it is medical, therapeutic or relational. You have the right to care and to be cared for. Fundamentally, human beings are relational, and we are not built to suffer on our own. To be conditioned otherwise is a direct result of caregivers’ neglect. To recover from C-PTSD, understanding that, believing in it and taking risks to correct the conditioning is a challenge that we all face. However, the consequences of the past are gone; they may live in your soul memory, but this is not your soul. Your soul wants you to live. C-PTSD is the reminder that someone tried to take over your soul, they had an agenda for you that you did not consent to or even realise was happening. C-PTSD gives you validation that it did and was happening, and now you have conditioned responses that you must uncondition and decontaminate to find what your soul really wants for you. Because the only way out is through.

 

The body speaks to us in a language that we are taught to override. The body holds tension when unsafe and lets it go when it feels safe. Once it is safe, the body can express itself through pain and inflammation. The emotions can be felt, and the tension can be released. Sometimes these show up as autoimmune conditions, and other times this is a temporary flare-up that can be resolved with care and rest.  The medical model informs us that pain is bad, and we should suppress it. Pain is challenging, but it is also a message that we need to listen to.

 

Society tells us to do the same with our emotions as we do with our bodies. Suppress, do not show your feelings and push down pain. This messaging is causing us all to suffer. We need to feel our feelings, share our emotions and listen to our body when we feel pain. If we do that, with practice, you can trust that your body will know how to keep you safe. Human beings are relational creatures; it is unnatural to try and do life, including suffering, on your own. The relationship with ourselves dictates how we will be with others. So, if we attempt to separate our minds from our bodies, then we will mirror this by choosing to accept fragmented relationships in our lives. Remember you have the right to care and to be cared for as a whole, not just a part.

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CHAT WITH MIRANDA