You're a high-achieving woman who has to have everything in order. Otherwise, you feel anxious and as if everything could fall apart. You have a lot of responsibilities that rest on your shoulders. Which leads you to give it your all to do them perfectly to ensure you are successful in your life. You're juggling work, family time and commitments, self-care, leisure activities, and more.
However, it feels like once you get everything your chronic pain and chronic illness become a barrier to your success. They make you feel as if you have to struggle to continue living your life and achieving your goals. It makes you feel so isolated because it is hard to explain how you're feeling. This is why joining an online support group for women with complex and medical trauma in Washington, DC can be beneficial.
How Do These Support Groups for Young Adults with Chronic Illness and Pain Support Women?
When you're navigating your chronic illness and chronic pain alone, it can feel isolating and as if you're the only one navigating this. An online support group specifically for women who may not have the same diagnosis but understand the emotional and physical toll of chronic disease, illness, or pain (or all three) can be incredibly beneficial.
Online Support Groups Can Provide You With a Space to Talk to Other Women Who Understand and Can Validate Your Feelings.
They can also provide you with emotional and mental support and even guidance. The groups are led by a licensed therapist and can not only give you a place to give and get emotional support but gain tools to use in your everyday life. These tools will actually help you manage your emotions in a healthier and more productive way. For example, no more overworking yourself to the point of exhaustion, no more avoiding your needs to please everyone else, and no more feeling helpless.
The way that medical trauma becomes complex trauma is when the condition is chronic and leads to repeated invasive exams, painful treatments, surgeries, and appointments. All of which can lead to a lot of pain and stress. It can feel as if your boundaries are being invaded or that you are no longer in control of your own body. An online support group can be a place to talk, vent, and ask questions. It will validate your feelings and help you manage them in a healthier manner with other women who understand.
What Do These Women's Support Groups Do to Support These Women and Their Medical and Complex Trauma?
In these support groups, women with medical and complex medical trauma with chronic illness and chronic pain will learn about a variety of skills to help support them. These skills will be targeted to help these women become more resilient and cope with the daily challenges they may face. Our goal in helping women learn these skills in these support groups is so that they don't feel stuck in the moment of their chronic pain and chronic illness flare-ups. Instead, they can stay connected to their power and agency as a woman.
Mindfulness Skills
Women in these online support groups will learn mindfulness skills such as breathing techniques, visualizations, and meditations. Mindfulness is known to reduce anxiety and helps to ground and center a person by bringing their attention to the present moment. This can be beneficial when medical and complex trauma is at its worst because it keeps a person from ruminating on their pain or illness and helps them stay present.
CBT Skills
Women in these groups will also learn Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) skills. They will learn about cognitive distortions. For example, these can look like, "I will never get better" or "I'm not good enough." Learning how to create new neural pathways in their brains with more helpful thoughts to get "unstuck" from their pain.
Distress Tolerance
It can be exhausting enduring the chronic pain and chronic illness flare-ups and the medical appointments that come with it. It can lower your tolerance for distress and make it hard to make it through difficult times. In these support groups, we will work with women to learn distress tolerance skills. Where they will learn different tools and ideas to distract themselves in a healthy way from their physical or emotional pain. It will help to build up these women's distress tolerance muscle to where they will be able to make it through the hard times.
Ways to Help With Medical and Complex Trauma
Outside of our online support groups, having ways to help with medical and complex trauma is important. Having healthy coping mechanisms and daily practices can be useful in helping manage symptoms and flare-ups. They can also be a form of self-care which is essential in helping build resilience and manage stress.
Find a Physical Therapist to Support You
Having a multidisciplinary approach is key in helping with medical and complex trauma. This means you will have multiple eyes of specialized professionals, in many areas, to support you. For example, having a physical therapist to help you find exercises that is right for your body. Here are some physical therapists in Washington D.C. to help you get started:
Support Your Mind-Body Connection
Helping the communication between the mind-body connection is important when it comes to medical and complex trauma such as chronic illness and chronic pain. Having a professional massage therapist or acupuncturist to help your specific condition can be beneficial. It will help to reduce physical and emotional tension, allowing more space for healing your mind-body connection.
Breathe
Finally, it's important to remember to breathe. Utilizing tools such as box breathing and meditation can help activate the parasympathetic nervous system. This can relax the body and mind from the pain caused by chronic pain and illness and help activate the body's natural ability to heal itself from within. It will also help you to reduce anxiety, as well as increase your ability to cope with the pain.
Interested in Support Groups For Young Adults With Chronic Illness and Chronic Pain in Washington, D.C.?
Finding support from other women can be so beneficial in healing, feeling validating, and understanding your own experience with chronic illness and chronic pain. In my online support groups, I will be there to support you and other women to gain support, give support, and learn new tools to help manage the medical and complex trauma of chronic illness and chronic pain. All without leaving your home. You can still be the successful high-achieving woman you are meant to be, and I am here to help you on your journey.
Follow the steps below to get started on your journey to healing.
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Meet other women who understand what you’re going through!
Other Mental Health Services Offered at Greater Washington DC and New York City CBT Counseling for Women
You can gain support from other women who also understand the medical and complex trauma of chronic illness and chronic pain. My women's support groups offer an open space for women to process and work through their thoughts, feelings, and behaviors associated with chronic illness and chronic pain. I am an expert that specializes in women's health and understand that you may be seeking other services besides the support group. At Greater Washington DC and New York City CBT Counseling for Women, I offer an array of therapeutic services for anxiety, depression, and PTSD in both Individual and Group counseling settings. I also specialize in Acceptance and Commitment Therapy and Cognitive Processing Therapy in addition to CBT.