Affirmation

 


To feel heard and seen truly is everything for the person diagnosed with ME. It is a precious gift, that few give sadly. When someone does give that gift it is very moving and life bringing.


THE IMPORTANCE OF AFFIRMATION 

Being affirmed makes such a difference when you live in an invisible, tormented world that no one understands or seems to care about or even notice.
Living in total isolation and separation can leave you feeling unconsidered, less than real, invisible, uncared for, unrecognised, unknown, belittled, less than human even and definitely unequal. 
The need to be seen for who you are and what you have experienced and heard may be massive. 
Affirmation means to give your fullest attention to the other. It means to watch for non-verbal cues as well as the words someone is speaking. It means to convey, both by your posture and look, that you really care about what the other person is saying.
Even if you do not speak a word, you can still convey empathy for the person and what they are sharing, even if that content is painful, unresolvable or distressing. 
Sometimes words, opinions, positive thinking, finding solutions, suggesting actions, will get in the way of just being present and hearing the person, feeling their pain, conveying you are listening, not judging them. 
Sometimes there are no answers, no solutions, no clear ways forward, just the speaking, the feeling, the sharing may be more than enough for the person.
To truly be listened to and heard is fundamentally validating, never forget this.
To have someone else’s pure attention can be life bringing, affirming, healing.
To feel affirmed, valid, valuable enough to be truly heard, can work miracles of healing or become the first step in a long process of dealing with pain, grief, deep wounds, isolation, separation, negation.

Adapted from “More Notes For Carers”

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

When I am 64 and other false positives : The PACE Trial.

Image
Greg Crowhurst 6 th February 2013 “Much of what we think we know based on conventional statistical studies published in the academic literature stands a good chance of just not being  so “  Roger Pielke Jr http://rogerpielkejr.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/false-positive-science.html Imagine  I am a psychiatrist and for £5 million, say ,  I want to prove that CBT and GET are a safe and useful treatment  for ME. The good news is “ how unacceptably easy it is to accumulate (and report) statistically significant evidence for a false hypothesis ,  according to Nelson and  Simonsohn (2011).  Their frightening  paper “ False-Positive Psychology, ” shows  how  “ undisclosed flexibility in data collection and analysis allows presenting anything as significant ,” .  In fact Nelson and Simonshon statistically  “prove” that listening to “ When I am 64 ” by the Beatles can   make you a couple of years young...
Read more

Paralysis, a qualitative study of people with Severe Myalgic Encephalomyelitis

Image
Greg and Linda Crowhurst (August 8 th 2013). Synopsis Paralysis is a symptom that is rarely highlighted in the literature for ME, yet is found amongst the most severely ill ME population and even some of those not so severely affected. My wife has experienced it for almost 2 decades, without adequate exploration, alongside exposure to denial and dismissal, ignorance and neglect as well as harmful treatment. We wanted to find out if there was anyone else with a similar experience to my wife's or if she was a rare and very severe case. We wanted to highlight the seriousness of this symptom and ask why it is being ignored and down played not only by the medical profession, with its inappropriate focus on fatigue and the psychosocial response, but also by the main charities, none of whom, flag it up as a main symptom. This qualitative research study indicates that there are significant others experiencing apparently similar paralysis and that my wife is not un...
Read more

DO NO HARM, DO NO BETRAYAL

Image
By Diane  I'm not sure where to start but this is my story so far.  My name is Diane and I'm a carer for my adult daughter, Lili, who is completely bedbound with very severe myalgic enceplalomyelitis.  For Lili, M.E. didn't come slowly.   It very rudely crashed into her life and very quickly stole her health, taking bigger and bigger chunks of it as she deteriorated.  It all began when she experienced a gastric-flu virus of a sort she had never experienced before because this time she never regained her health.  A couple days later, she woke up with agonising head pain 'like her brain was on fire', with severe neck pain – she also couldn't move her neck, and her whole body was paralysed.  She's not sure how long she stayed like this as she was in and out of consciousness but she truly felt that she was going to die because her body was undergoing an extreme crisis.  To cut a long story short, it took a year to get a diagnosis durin...
Read more