The time I thought my patient had died
It was my last patient on a Friday afternoon (of course), with a wonderful mix of obscure and concerning symptoms (of course) and me being her last resort as nothing else had worked and no-one knew what was wrong with her (ooffff course).
Despite the lack of any red flags on her examination and nothing having showed up on any of her previous testing/imaging, I still treated her realllly gently with a few mobilisations and light soft tissue work.
As I'm wrapping up to go home, the receptionist lets me know that the patient is on the phone. When I talk to the patient, she is really stressed because her symptoms - which were already of the weird and wonderful variety - had worsened since her not-long-ago appointment.
I reminded her that this can happen temporarily after treatment and reassured her that her GP would also check everything again (he was already scheduled to make a house call to her later that afternoon).
​
But of course internally I was FREAKING OUT.
After a sleepless night of doom-spiralling, I decided to phone her over the weekend to check in. She (of course) didn't answer the phone and my brain made the only logical conclusion: she must be dead.
​
Okay, let me pause here in case this story also makes you FREAK OUT & let you know that the patient was not only completely fine but calmly sauntered into the practice on Monday morning as if nothing had happened. You can breathe now 😉
​
But the reason I'm telling you this story was because of something I learned in watching my brain that weekend (a fun side effect of doing a lot of coaching - the awareness of your own brain). And what I realised was that I was not trying to feel better.
It was my last patient on a Friday afternoon (of course), with a wonderful mix of obscure and concerning symptoms (of course) and me being her last resort as nothing else had worked and no-one knew what was wrong with her (ooffff course).
Despite the lack of any red flags on her examination and nothing having showed up on any of her previous testing/imaging, I still treated her realllly gently with a few mobilisations and light soft tissue work.
As I'm wrapping up to go home, the receptionist lets me know that the patient is on the phone. When I talk to the patient, she is really stressed because her symptoms - which were already of the weird and wonderful variety - had worsened since her not-long-ago appointment.
I reminded her that this can happen temporarily after treatment and reassured her that her GP would also check everything again (he was already scheduled to make a house call to her later that afternoon).
​
But of course internally I was FREAKING OUT.
After a sleepless night of doom-spiralling, I decided to phone her over the weekend to check in. She (of course) didn't answer the phone and my brain made the only logical conclusion: she must be dead.
​
Okay, let me pause here in case this story also makes you FREAK OUT & let you know that the patient was not only completely fine but calmly sauntered into the practice on Monday morning as if nothing had happened. You can breathe now 😉
​
But the reason I'm telling you this story was because of something I learned in watching my brain that weekend (a fun side effect of doing a lot of coaching - the awareness of your own brain). And what I realised was that I was not trying to feel better.
​
Whaattt??
You'd think that when you're suffering from being stressed AF and can't sleep or eat properly, you'd do everything you can to help yourself feel better. You'd do all the breathing exercises and meditation to help you calm down, you'd distract yourself with something fun or talk about literally anything else with your partner.
​
But here's the thing: the anxiety and rumination felt protective. It was as if, as long as my mind stayed focused on the situation and replayed every horrible eventuality, I'd be mentally prepared for the outcome. It also felt like there was some aspect of control, as if by thinking enough about what could go wrong I would be spared. If not, then BAM! - it would hit me like a ton of karmic bricks for daring to relax at time like this.
​
And this checks out with what we know about behaviour: it always makes sense in context.
There's always a reason someone is doing something, even if it looks completely illogical. There is always something beneficial about the behaviour, even if that's just in the short-term.
So instead of asking the very unhelpful "What is wrong with me??" question, you can ask these instead:
What would be bad about changing?
What would be good about staying the same?
​
When I understood what I was gaining from staying in FREAKING OUT mode and what felt scary about being calm, I could approach the situation very differently. I slowly allowed myself to do small things that made me feel better, reassuring myself along the way. I also understood and allowed those moments where I was engaging in the behaviours that felt protective, instead of beating myself up about it.
I was still stressed until that patient walked into the practice (very much not-dead), but I felt much calmer and better rested than I had been for most of that weekend. When we understand where our behaviour is coming from, it makes it much easier to actually change when we want to. And when we're not trying to change, it can help us be kinder to ourselves and accept our behaviour for what it's doing for us.
What do you find about a behaviour you're struggling with when you ask yourself the two questions above?
