I know how challenging it can be to manage a career, relationships, and family. All of this can become even more challenging when health issues are part of what you have to manage, for yourself or others. If you're finding yourself feeling overwhelmed, sad, tearful, restless, hopeless, or irritable - like you just can't keep it all together, or your bigger life goals are unimaginably far out of reach right now - I'd like to help.
As a woman who spent many years working in private industry before entering the field of psychotherapy, I know how pressures can pile up on you. You may be finding that your career requires far more energy than you have time, especially in light of current economic conditions. Trying to maintain an existing romantic relationship, or develop a new romantic relationship may feel like just another obligation at times. If you have children, or are caring for aging parents, it may seem like too many people are placing demands on you, and there's never time for a break. Perhaps the sense of fun has disappeared from your life.
In particular, life can feel really complicated if you're dealing with a chronic health condition, or helping manage someone else's health. Diseases such as diabetes, PCOS, cancer, heart disease, and other conditions can take a drain on you as a caregiver, and complicate your ability to manage everything if you have a chronic condition yourself. You might not be aware that there's a very high incidence of depression among people with these diseases, and having a chronic disease makes it harder to manage feelings of sadness, rage, frustration, and disappointment. Temporary conditions such as peri-menopause or infertility may also trigger feelings of hopelessness, loss, and anger that you have difficulty sorting through on your own.
Additionally, living with a chronic or acute disease may require mental adjustments - changing expectations about what your life and health looks like, your future, and how you engage in relationships. These frustrations are typically not addressed by your medical doctors, who leave you to cope on your own.
Fears related to not being able to manage it all or have it all crop up more regularly when you're dealing with chronic illness too. Because many of us have an invisible diagnosis, others may not be sensitive to your different needs for time, health maintenance activities like exercise, food preparation, and going to medical appointments. There's often a stigma attached to having an illness, and a lot of shame and feelings of failure when your health picture changes for the worse.
I work closely with people who are feeling overwhelmed by life's demands, especially when they have a chronic or acute illness. I have specialized training in the management of Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS), type II diabetes, and cancer, as well as grief and loss issues. I will also work closely with your medical team, if desired, to ensure that your mental health care is integrated with your medical care.
If you'd like to learn how to optimize your feelings of well-being, recognize the ways in which your lifestyle and/or health concerns are impacting your sense of self, enhance or develop a positive coping attitude and style, and develop better inter-personal skills, my relational approach, coupled with a mind/body orientation will help you decrease stress and feelings of depression and loss, and improve the way you feel about your life, your body, and your relationships.