Category: Heart disease and mental health issues

– posts here focus on the often overlooked emotional impact of having a cardiac event

Where are you on the Distress Thermometer?

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 18 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas   ❤️   Heart Sisters (on Blue Sky)

I’ve been sleeping poorly lately. I think I have an ice pick headache coming on. I can’t seem to concentrate. I feel utterly overwhelmed. I cried off and on for an entire day last week. I am clearly distressed. 

I recognize this distress because I’ve experienced a similar response in the past – like surviving a misdiagnosed “widow maker” heart attack back in 2008, for example. That was pretty darned distressing.  The National Institutes of Health describe distress as “emotional, social, spiritual, or physical pain, or suffering that may cause a person to feel that they are not able to manage or cope with overwhelming changes caused by normal life activities or a serious medical diagnosis.”  Those are almost exactly the words I said to a friend just this past week when I was wailing into the phone about my new breast cancer diagnosis: “I just don’t think I am able to get through this!”   (You can read more about my breast cancer experiences in these posts).

Enter the Distress Thermometer:
Continue reading “Where are you on the Distress Thermometer?” →

The “not wonderful” new diagnosis I didn’t see coming

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 45 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas   ❤️   Heart Sisters (on Blue Sky)

If you’re me, and you live with a medical condition as serious as heart disease (which is women’s #1 killer worldwide, by the way), you may start believing that this is it. This will be the cause of death listed in your obituary some day. This is the diagnosis that kick-started  your tests, medical procedures, follow-up appointments, more tests, scary symptoms, prescription cardiac meds you’ll take for the rest of your life, and writing these Sunday morning Heart Sisters articles.

But as the saying goes, “Life is what happens when we’re busy making other plans.”  And last month, LIFE happened to me. . .
Continue reading “The “not wonderful” new diagnosis I didn’t see coming” →

Constructive wallowing after a serious diagnosis

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 9 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas   ❤️   Heart Sisters (on Blue Sky)

If you were a hippopotamus, wallowing would be comfort behaviour – “rolling about in mud or water to cool down or get relief from insect bites.”

But since you’re a human, wallowing is generally viewed by others as a negative response to coping with dark despair (like hearing a frightening new diagnosis with your name on it).  Aren’t we supposed to keep smiling and think positive and just get over it?  “NO!” advises Dr. Tina Gilbertson in her Psychology Today column called Three Good Reasons to Wallow in Despair: 
 Continue reading “Constructive wallowing after a serious diagnosis” →

Can “mental muscle” help us recuperate?

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 1 Comment

by Carolyn Thomas    ♥    @HeartSisters

Dr. Amy Morin described her early career as a psychotherapist who“intended  to help others build mental strength”. She could never have imagined, however,  that she would soon need what she calls “mental muscle” to help herself. When Amy was just 23, her mother died of a brain aneurysm. Three years later, a heart attack killed Amy’s young husband, Lincoln – a tragedy that was followed by her father-in-law’s sudden death.

This is what she wrote about surviving the pain of those losses:

“I was a 26-year old widow with no Mom. Losing the most important people in my life sent me on a quest to learn how I could stay mentally strong.”  

Continue reading “Can “mental muscle” help us recuperate?” →