Steps to Healing My Knee, The Same As Trauma

So, recently I had a little mishap while picking up my luggage from the baggage claim carousel. It’s been diagnosed as damage to the meniscus of my left knee, which they suspect will heal itself in 6-8 weeks.

In essence, the treatment for this injury is to just do what I can to promote healing. This includes:

1. Being gentle, and patient, with my knee. (Admittedly, patience is not a strong suit for me. It’s a struggle)

2. Wearing a knee brace for extra support to prevent any further damage when I am out and about on my feet.

3. Taking an anti-inflammatory medication when necessary to keep down swelling and pain.

Notice how there is absolutely no shame in any of this. Every single person I’ve talked to about this, and when you’re wearing a knee brace people do ask what happened quite frequently, has done nothing but encourage me to do all three of those things. I write this without any hesitation.

Now, let’s take a trip down memory lane with me. Back in the late 90s when I had a mental health injury, I had to do three things:

1. Be gentle, and patient, with myself.

2. Use therapy, friendships, etc. to provide extra support when needed.

3. Take medications to keep down any further complications.

The details in those three things are different, the timing of healing is different, but the ideas are basically the same. My childhood trauma was an injury that I needed to heal from. It was causing the mental health issues, and it required some work to heal. While that was happening, I needed support systems, and medication, to prevent further injury while going through the healing process, and to manage the pain involved.

Just like my little knee injury. Except there’s no one out here telling me that it’s “all in my head”, or to just “get over it”, or suggest that I’m weak for needing support and medication. I’ve gotten nothing but helpfulness and support from people I’ve talked to. (Despite my own lack of patience.)  Imagine if we could get to a point where we treat people with mental health problems the same way?