YOU ARE NOT ALONE
Dear Fibroids, You can’t have my mental health
12 Weeks of Narrative Therapy Sessions
DESIGNED WITH BLACK WOMEN IN MIND
a safe space to be seen, heard, validated and supported during this unpredictable time
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As a Black Woman your experience with fibroids is more likely to be twice as severe than other races, you are more likely to experience rapid growth rates, have larger sized fibroids and your reproductive health is at higher risk due to earlier age onsets. (Eltoukhi et al.,2014)
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Are you stressed about making the right decisions for your body and future?
Are you grieving the loss of children due to miscarriage or stillbirth, or that this could cause infertility, stealing away your hopes to be a mother?
Is the chronic pain taking a toll on your life?
Has the pelvic bulge and long periods impacted your self-esteem?
Do you find yourself anxious and depressed about the symptoms?
Do you enjoy a more structured approach to therapy that includes homework?
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This is individual weekly counseling that will focus on self-esteem, learning coping skills to decrease stress, addressing identity, grief, trauma, nutrition for body and mind, generational impacts, prevention for future generations, and self-advocacy in medical settings.
Each week will be different. To keep things interesting, we will weave in expressive art interventions such as therapeutic art, journaling, photovoice, and music therapy.
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Narrative therapy is an evidence-based modality proven to be effective when working with Black women because it allows you, the individual, to tell your story. The process involves externalizing and renaming the problem, deconstructing and re-authoring your experience to help you transition from feeling powerless to empowered. While using this intervention, we will incorporate therapeutic art and expressive writing to assist in narrating and understanding your experience.
My Story
Navigating this diagnosis can impact your mental health more than you realize. Trust me, I've been there, and it's a big reason I do the work I do. I want to provide the support I never considered seeking during that time. Black women are disproportionately impacted by this condition and often left to cope with the aftermath alone.
I know firsthand what a fibroid diagnosis feels like. I also know what it feels like to be told it's common in black women, which to me normalized it as something that I shouldn't worry about. Since my fibroids were small, I was advised that we should "let's watch and see". Unfortunately, this method didn't work for me. Within six months, they had multiplied and taken over my womb. I was stressed, lethargic (due to anemia), and weighing my limited options, which in my case was one, and that was surgery.
The morning after, when I came to terms with the diagnosis, I had a consult with a potential surgeon, who told me he would have to perform an open cut, and there was a possibility due to the number, size, and placement of the fibroids that he would have to perform a hysterectomy.
I left the consult devastated; I was faced with the realization that I was in my early 30s and hadn't had children and faced with the sudden realization that I could lose my chance during surgery. Once I pulled myself together, I sought a second opinion, which led to an excellent surgeon who performed a minimally invasive surgery on me.
During my fibroid journey, I suffered grief from miscarriages, stress, feelings of powerlessness, and depression with no mental health support.
Reflecting on this time, I realized I needed someone to talk through my options, vent to, validate what I was going through, and teach me coping techniques.
Although I didn't have it for myself, I devoted my time during my graduate studies to researching what the mental health impact was like for black women, and unfortunately, too many women had the same experience or worse than I had.
I don't have all the answers, but what I do have is empathy for what you may be experiencing, and I want you to know that's part of my mission as a therapist. Along with this diagnosis came miscarriages, threats of miscarriages, infertility struggles, hysterectomies, and, don't get me started with, the medical care disparities and depression that often followed.
My goal is to let you tell your story, support you, and empower you. If my story resonates with you, reach out. The morning after a diagnosis can be numbing, but you don't have to walk it alone. There's hope waiting for you.
Tiffany
