Coaching Yourself to Better Health
In my experience, one of the keys to recovery from Functional Neurological Disorder lies in your willingness to discover those thoughts and beliefs that lie deep within yourself and your ability to accept what you find, analyze it, challenge it if necessary, and replace unhealthy thoughts and beliefs with new ones that serve you better. It’s not easy to dig through all of the layers of protection your mind has created and confront things that you prefer to think aren’t there. It takes courage to accept that there are parts of you that, well, aren’t very pretty.
The truth is, EVERYONE has things about themselves that they don’t broadcast to others. Looking at someone’s public persona presented on social media, we might assume that everyone else has this life thing figured out and we are the only defective ones out there. The only life we know intimately is the one that takes place inside our own personal body. All of what we know about the other bodies surrounding us is what they choose to display publicly, which is a tiny percentage of who that person really is.
There is both good news and bad news about this. The good news- YOU are the only expert on YOU! No one else has access to every thought that enters your head (thank goodness!). No one else is privy to everything you have experienced in your life. They don’t know what has shaped you into the person you are today.
Now the bad news- you are the only expert on you. You can go to a hundred neurologists looking for answers or see a thousand therapists for help, but there is no one except you that has access to all of the information needed for your recovery from FND.
I have read that not everyone can recover from FND. I don’t know if that’s true or not. I only know my own experience. From that experience, I can say that I know that I am faced with choices every day that determine whether or not I go down the road leading to Functional Neurological Disorder symptoms. I can choose decisions and thoughts that empower me to overcome the glitches in my brain that lead to dysfunction or I can choose to give in to the dysfunctional patterns that my brain wants to sometimes follow.
This is not going to be a popular opinion, I know. I am NOT saying that it’s your own fault if you have symptoms. FND is absolutely not your fault. I am saying that it may be possible to learn how to think and behave in a way that strengthens the normal pathways in your brain. The more you practice healthy patterns, the more ingrained that they become and the easier it is to stay healthy.
The greatest power for your healing lies within yourself.
Let’s look at some examples of ways to help yourself. I have found it helpful to challenge every belief that I have about FND and my symptoms. Sometimes this is uncomfortable and I don’t like what I see. The wonderful thing about managing my FND in my own private head is that I don’t have to share the ugly parts with anyone else unless I want to. Since my goal is to help other people manage their FND, I’ve chosen to share things with you that I might normally keep private. Ugh. I can’t say this is fun and I hope I’m not misinterpreted, but here goes.
I’m going to use my last blog post as an example. In Sensory Sensitivity, I talked about how my sensitivity to sound is overwhelming and debilitating. That is true. Now let’s challenge some of my unhelpful thinking. (And thanks to my friend FND Portal for helping me confront some of this.)
First unhelpful thought- “I can’t handle noise.”
Is that true? I don’t like it, that’s for sure. It makes me uncomfortable. I prefer quiet. I prefer solitude. When my environment is noisy, I feel anxious. When my surroundings are peaceful and calm, I feel peaceful and calm. That makes sense.
Is there a more helpful way to think about this problem? Probably. (What you can’t see is my toddler brain kicking and screaming and insisting that, no, there is no other way to see this! Everything in this dang world is too loud! I don’t like it! It isn’t fair! The world just needs to shut up!)
Okay. Tantrum over. Looking at the problem rationally, I can recognize that the more I focus on my sensitivity and the noise around me, the worse that it becomes. Focusing on whatever symptom we are experiencing makes it more ingrained and more powerful.
New strategy- when something is noisy and bothers me, I notice, accept it, and move on. I don’t deny that it’s noisy or that it’s irritating. The app I’ve been using for finding noise levels in public spaces, SoundPrint, has been helpful. When I notice the noise is bothersome, I pull up the app and measure the noise level. At a restaurant last week, after I was irritated by the noise, I was surprised to find that the level was actually in the quiet range. It helped to then tell myself that I had objective evidence that it wasn’t too bad. It became easier to accept that it was an environment that I COULD function in just fine. I was amazed to discover that I then more easily focused on the conversation and my family and I ended up having a wonderful time. Experiences like this build on each other. My expectation is that it will become easier with time to be in noisy environments.
Notice the expectation for success. A mindset that believes that things will improve is critical for actual improvement!
Coaching yourself through difficult situations and cheering for yourself when you experience success needs to become a way of life if you have Functional Neurological Disorder. Treat every small step in the direction towards recovery as the huge accomplishment that it actually is. When you identify a thought or action that is contributing to your disability, that is a HUGE step towards wellness! Recognition is the first step towards future awareness of the problem and figuring out how to take a different approach. Praise and reward yourself for every success. Our brains love being rewarded and will repeat the desired outcome in anticipation of more praise and goodies!
Think about the possible thoughts you are having that may not be true. Here are some examples of my past unhelpful thought patterns-
- There has to be SOMETHING terribly wrong with me that the doctors aren’t figuring out!
- I’m never going to get better.
- My body has betrayed me.
- I must be totally psychotic since I’ve been told these symptoms are a product of my mind.
- I will never walk again.
- Functional Neurological Disorder has destroyed my life.
I could go on, but you probably have your own list of things you have believed that may not be true and may be keeping you sick. If you are serious about recovery, why not spend some time and consider some new thoughts? It may be just the thing to start you on your journey to renewed health. At the end of this post, I have included a page that you can print out and use to work on your thought patterns. It takes some time and practice to learn to think in a new way, but I have faith in you! You can do this!
Feel free to email me at fndrecovery@gmail.com or comment below if you have any thoughts that you would like to discuss with me.
Wishing you an exciting journey towards health,
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