Systemic Impacts of Illness and Injury From a Seattle Medical Trauma Therapist
If you experienced an injury or got a new diagnosis today, what would be your next step? Who would you call? When you experience a major medical event or trauma it not only impacts you, but it impacts your entire system.
Image from Unsplash
What Do You Mean By ‘System?’
Your ‘system’ is everyone and everything you interact with on a regular basis. There is a complex recursive relationship between how you interact with your system, and its interactions with you. The system in which you exist is bigger than the sum of its parts, like a car, it’s much more than oil and metal. Your system consists of interpersonal relationships, an intrapersonal relationship (relationship with yourself), a relationship with your community, culture, and humanity. You do not exist outside of your system. It impacts how you see the world, interpret events, and understand yourself.
Why is This Important?
It can be helpful to understand the ripple effects injury and illness have on your system and the impact your system has on your ability to cope with illness or injury. Understanding this interplay can help you better access proper support and make decisions that are best for you. If you’re reading this as a family, friend or partner of someone dealing with illness or injury, I hope it will help you realize that you are impacted too, and it’s important you get support as well.
Impacted Parts of Your System
Family:
Depending on your relationship with your family, the impacts of injury or illness will look different. I commonly see loved ones of clients dealing with their own mental health issues related to the illness or injury. This can include but is not limited to, anxiety, depression, PTSD, stress, burnout, financial struggles, lack of ability to focus, lack of self-care or emotional detachment. Loved ones can feel guilty for not ‘catching’ something earlier or being the one that is unharmed. They may even experience jealously related to the love and support you are getting due to illness or injury. Relationships between other family members may be impacted, especially if others were involved in an incident. Bonding over a traumatic event that led to injury may lead other family members to feel isolated. It’s important that family members have support outside of the family system. I’ve found it’s common that the ‘identified patient’ often ends up emotionally supporting other family members. How you deal, understand, or narrate your experience with illness or injury may be impacted by your family of origin. How your family deals with it will also be impacted by family communication patterns, unspoken family rules, how your family deals with trauma and how they fit into greater society.
Partner:
Being a partner of someone who’s experienced an illness or injury is challenging. The partner may feel a variety of feelings including but not limited to grief, denial, anger, bargaining, guilt, sadness, confusion and more. They may not know how to be supportive or even how to take care of themselves. If you need to stop working or medical bills are piling up, the financial stress may impact you, your partner and your family. You partner might become your primary caregiver and get burnt-out carrying much of the load. Your partner might put on a stoic face, but it's important to ask them how they are doing. Partner’s have to deal with the daily implications of injury or illness while also managing their own emotional responses to the challenges. This relationship may also be complicated with each person’s family of origin being brought in. I’ve worked with many people navigating living with in laws because they needed the support. Then you multiple what was discussed under ‘family’ regarding family rules, communication styles and more.
Dating:
Dating while coping with illness or injury can be extremely strange at first. You must decide in any given situation how or if you want to discuss what’s going on with you (if they can’t visibly see it) or if they bring it up themselves. It can be helpful to think of a way to clear out people who aren’t compatible quickly. The illness or injury might also lead you to have thoughts and feelings about dating in the first place. Further leading to feelings of isolation, unworthiness, or depression.
Caregiving/Parenting:
If you are a parent or provide caregiving to a vulnerable person, your relationship may change significantly. You may not have the internal or external resources to provide in the way you’d like to. This typically ends up putting more stress on other family members or forces a greater financial implication to substitute the caregiving. Transportation, time, and types of involvement may be affected. It’s possible due to a new illness or injury you might be reconsidering having children all together. I have clients who don’t want to pass down specific genetic traits and that leads to them deciding not to become parents. An illness or injury might also impact your reproductive capabilities. This can lead to hard, stressful decision making.
Friends:
Adult friendships are hard enough to make and maintain even without illness or injury. Just like with family, friends will respond differently depending on the kind of relationship you have with them and how they function within their system. Friends may experience many of the same mental and emotional impacts that family does. For better or worse, you most likely will be disappointed with someone during this time and how they respond to you. The injury or illness can be thought of as its own person coming into an existing friendship. You nor or friend may know how to respond or deal with this new ‘person.’ This may be a time of re-evaluating some of your friendships and finding out who fits into your life at this stage.
Work:
Your relationship with work can be a complicated one. Even though legally in the United States, employers are mandated to provide work accommodations for employees, this can often be a lengthy process. This ‘messy middle’ time can be extremely challenging, and many people even are scared they’ll lose their job. You may also have to deal with unwelcomed comments or questions from co-workers. Perhaps your illness or injury lead you to re-evaluate your life and you decide to change careers, an exciting yet additional life transition. Work can often be a contributing factor in the injury or illness and the relationship to work ethic, capitalism and cultural norms may need challenging.
Hobbies or Recreation:
You may or may not be able to engage in precious activities that gave you joy. Aside from examining adaptations, it can be helpful to explore new avenues and options. For many, this impacts their friendships and sense of community, especially if communities of recreation were a big part of your social life. You may want to isolate from activities you used to engage in because you don’t want to have to re-explain your situation. I found many clients find new hobbies due to illness or injury, whether that’s wheelchair basketball, diagnosis specific support groups or more. Who knows what communities you may find as a result of your new reality.
Medical Professionals:
Your experience and outcomes with illness or injury will be significantly impacted by how you are treated by medical professionals. Systemic oppression such as racism, anti-fat bias, able-ism, transphobia, homophobia and more are unfortunately part of the system that exists today. As we work to change it, it’s important to see these aspects of the system in order to protect and advocate for yourself. Chances are your providers deeply care about your wellbeing (including me) and are trying their best. It can also be helpful to understand that many providers are dealing with vicarious trauma, compassion fatigue and burnout. This is not for you to fix or stress about, only to understand the context in which many providers are serving you within. In no way am I excusing poor care or condoning harmful practices from the medical community. I am highlighting the lack of training and ongoing mental health support for doctors, nurses and first responders and the internalized systems of oppression that continue to impact care.
Image from Pexels
How to Navigate Systemic Impacts of Injury and Illness
· Clarity and honesty in communication is key.
It can be really hard to be honest and open, but you will ultimately be better off having upfront and clear conversations with people you care about. Even when speaking to people who are co-workers or acquaintances it’s important to be clear and understand how you want to related to them. Therapy is a helpful place to practice these conversations and discover language that is congruent with you.
· Adapt and be kind to yourself and others.
Managing a life transition of dealing with injury or illness is substantial. Whether you consider traumatic or not, it’s going to impact you and your system. It’s so important to practice kindness towards yourself. I find there to be a reciprocal relationship between being kind to yourself and the ability to be kind to others. Start focusing on one and the other will most likely become easier.
· Practice a few standard responses.
“I appreciate your concern Karen, and I would like to just focus on work today and not talk about my personal life.” That’s an example of a standard response you might give to a nosey co-worker who keeps asking questions about your injury or illness. Check out this blog on Navigating Toxic Positivity.
· Find opportunities to try new things.
You may or may not be able to engage in activities that previously gave you joy. As you adjust to your new reality and it’s implications, it can be helpful to try to come to daily life with a curious stance. You may find activities you enjoy that you never tried before. You might find communities or bonds that you never imagined.
· Identify and prioritize your boundaries.
It’s important to get clear on your boundaries both with loved ones and with strangers. Whether your injury of illness is visible may impact how you want to handle situations, but it’s totally up to you. Communicate your boundaries, expectations, and needs clearly to those around you.
Managing illness or injury is no small feat. If you need help clarifying your boundaries, communicating with others, increasing kindness and curiosity towards yourself, or processing trauma, reach out and schedule a free consultation. If you’re a loved one of someone dealing with illness or injury, you need help too. You don’t have to face this alone. Schedule today.
Learn more about me here. Or check out my specialties: Anxiety, grief, medical trauma, health issues, infertility, pregnancy loss, menopause. Or return back to the blog.