Question to the expert: “Will I be able to return to a joyful life?”

“As a result of the injury, I could not walk for a long time. I was abandoned by a young man, betrayed by a friend. And now there are problems at work. I feel apathy, often cry, sleep badly and try to understand everything: what am I guilty of? I don’t like myself like this, but how can I return to my former, active, joyful life?

Catherine, 30 years

Ekaterina Mikhailova, psychologist:

“You have become a prisoner of high demands on yourself. Despite physical rehabilitation, healing mental wounds takes time and a lot of effort. You seem to feel obliged to show the previous results as soon as possible, thereby confirming that your colleagues did not help you in vain, that you are worth their investment.

After a serious injury, no athlete immediately tries to take the same height. Comparing your capabilities before the injury and now, you torture yourself, reproach yourself for failure, as if you promised everyone miraculously to become the same immediately, but you couldn’t.

Meanwhile, you have already done the almost impossible – literally put yourself together piece by piece. The starting point is not the ideal of a winner that you torture yourself with, but daily progress: today I can do what I could not yesterday. Yesterday, not before the injury. Recovery of mental strength is the same difficult process as physical recovery. Just as you learned to walk again, you will regain your professional skills, self-confidence, a sense of success. You have a lot to do: you have to deal with the bitter memory of those who left you, learn to accept sympathy, forgive yourself for weakness, rejoice in those achievements that you simply would not have noticed before. You will have to raise yourself as if you were raising a child with love and patience, commensurate your plans with his capabilities. If you can’t do this work alone, use professional help and believe: you will still surprise yourself and others!”