You can’t heal the wound with the knife still in it
I saw this tweet this week from showupforthis and it stopped me in my tracks.

It is talking about the trauma of Covid and the past year of the pandemic, and makes complete sense. But for me it made me think about the trauma of several years of ongoing poor health, surgeries, pain and suffering. I have been giving myself such a hard time about feeling depressed and struggling to ‘get over’ my illness. But this hit me hard. Of course I cannot heal the trauma when I am still in the middle of it!
I am still unwell, I am on a lot of medication and seeing two different consultants. I am starting with other symptoms and being referred to another specialist. My tummy is disfigured and swollen and very painful. I have fatigue, I can’t sleep without sleeping tablets due to anxiety and I am on antidepressants.
Yet I am asking myself why do I feel like this? Why am I so low and anxious? This tweet summed it all up for me.
You can’t heal a wound with a knife still in it.
I am still on the journey, I am still dealing with surgery and medications but I am expecting myself to be dealing with the trauma. The knife is still well and truly stuck in there and I am wondering why the wound isn’t healing!
I suppose I just wanted to write about this as I know so many of us give ourselves such a hard time whilst never looking past the surface. Many of us are living with daily pain and massive uncertainty with out health and wonder why we feel so low about it.
Not that all hope is lost, as it says, we can identify the wound, we can learn coping strategies to live with it in our side. We can move forward in learning more about ourselves and how we can manage to live the best life right now. And maybe one day I will learn to heal. But I feel like giving myself a break from wondering why I am not healing right this second.
The NHS say “Two thirds of people with a long-term physical health condition also have a mental health problem, mostly anxiety and depression.” So we are more likely to struggle with our mental health. Maybe it is time we spoke about this a little more as I am shocked by that statistic!
This quote isn’t going to rid me of all anxiety, nor is it going to fix me. But it is going to be another card in my positive affirmations that I tell myself when times are really shitty.
I hope it helps you too
Peace and love
Sam xx