Hi
@Reader525,
Hooray for you to realize that your recovery is taking a mental health toll, too.
Because of a series of intense family health challenges over the last 5 years, I began doing Zoom counseling about a year ago, before my TKR, and it had been SO helpful! My therapist WAS very sympathetic, as he has incurred injuries he has had to recover from, and he was stupendously supportive.
What initially prompted it was that I had residual PTSD from my support of my husband who battled leukemia throughout 2019, through several near-death experiences, seizures, etc., so I certainly had a backlog of “work” to do on the emotional plane!
But, this surgery IS life altering, mostly eventually for the best, but it IS a long process to get there! I would really encourage you to seek out a different counselor/therapist to work with for at least a few months as you traverse this journey. Throughout this healing journey, modes of facing challenges don’t usually work like they used to, ways we found in the past to surmount obstacles don’t always work, pep talks aren’t peppy, and those around us are clueless! We NEED others around us that “get” it and are there for us! Bonesmart is a wonderful group of supporters, and the therapist who I see loves that it exists and thinks it is SO needed in other realms! He has seen its value in my life AND he is still really helpful to me in addressing stuff I “stuffed” in the past because it was all I could do.
I’m not sure how to go about finding the right person for you, though, as I found him through someone I honor/follow locally, who is on a remarkable and challenging path but who found him and mentioned him when I privately messaged her. I could ask him how to find someone like him, though, with his area of training and specialties?
I DO understand what you are going through, and I do suspect that this surgery, and all we each face throughout our recovery CAN be life-enhancing, but sometimes there are unexpected twists and turns along that path! It behooves us to seek out those we can find to try and help us along the path… it seems those of us with strong religious underpinnings feel it’s how a higher being leads us to our better selves. And those of us not as religious see the underpinnings of the recovery as offering us unexpected opportunities for life lessons we didn’t yet know we needed!
I think you will emerge from this recovery a stronger person and one with a greater understanding of how you have lived in the world and what ways you used in the past needed to change going forward… you will become a more compassionate and understanding you in the process… and it’s a tough road, but worth traveling!