Losing trust in your body
We all know and understand intuitively how important trust is in a relationship.
However this is not about the loss of trust between two people. It’s about a loss of trust in one’s self.
After years with chronic fatigue or pain people lose trust in themselves. They learn that they can no longer rely on their body to be there when they need it. Accepting an invitation a week out is essentially a lottery.
“Maybe I will maybe I won’t. Can I let you know”.
Waking up in the morning brings with it an uncertainty about what the day will bring.
“Will I get through the day or crash?”.
The things that used to be so easy and effortless in this body are now unpredictable, come at a huge cost or perhaps have become mere dreams.
It’s very hard to be in a relationship when you can’t rely on the other person. It’s even harder when you can’t rely on your own body.
After trust is broken, marriage counsellors often say it takes time to learn to trust again.
That has been my experience with people’s life after chronic pain and fatigue. After their training people begin to do all those things again. The energy is there on waking or in the afternoon, they find they are at the function they would normally cancel, eating the foods they couldn’t or just doing the normal things again.
But it can take sometime before it finally sinks in and they can say “I can trust my body”.
There’s an interesting period however where people have the capacity and experience to do things but the lack of trust is still there. Lack of trust has become a habit and shows up in fear. “What if I over do it?” “What if I crash?” “What if it doesn’t last?”
This early fear is a critical thing to address as it can instantly stop success. It stops behaviour and more importantly may trigger the very stress response they were rewiring.
So addressing fear is a part of people’s training – it’s retraining the body AND the mind remember. Either one can get in the way of progress.
In time trust returns. And because they did the work themselves the fear of relapse goes. Importantly they trust they can do it again if needed. They are back in CONTROL.
And like any healed relationship trust, confidence and resilience returns.
I often hear people say it took a little while but they had this moment of realisation – “I’m back!”
