Ginkgo Leaf is still responding to the emergency in Asheville, NC. We will be resuming business operations as of October 7. If you are in crisis, please call 911 or go to the nearest emergency room.
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If you have been charged in error during this time for a visit that did not occur, you will be refunded or this will be offered as a credit to your account when we regain Internet access.
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The start date for the RISE program has been changed to October 21, 2024.
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We are thinking of you all. Stay safe.
-The Ginkgo Leaf team
Medical Patients
There are good days, bad days, and days that are completely overwhelming. You have never thought so much about your body in your life, and now you struggle with it every day. You find yourself looking online, even though doctors tell you not to - but you are trying to understand what is happening to you. Perhaps if you can find a name for this, there will be a cure. Perhaps if it's happened to other people, you won't feel so alone.
You are grieving.
You remember when you trusted your body. There were times when you felt ill, but you recovered before. You had faith that you would get back to your usual self. Now, your medical team is telling you that things are going to be different, that there is no going back to how things used to be. You are angry, you are frightened, you are hurting, and your loved ones are, too. Nobody seems to know exactly what to say, or what you need. It feels like a bomb has gone off in your life, and you are sifting through the rubble.
You're a good patient.
But you don't want to be a patient at all.
You are taking your medication and going to your appointments. You are trying the treatments you've been offered. And yet, you find yourself dwelling on what has happened in your life. Perhaps you dream about it, perhaps you can't sleep because you're thinking about it. Perhaps others treat you like a novelty because of what you've been through, or they avoid you, or they don't seem to notice at all. All of this feels strange. You would really like to feel normal, and to have others treat you as though you are normal, too.
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The thing is - you're not sure what normal is, anymore.
It was when I stopped searching for home within others
and lifted the foundations of home within myself
I found there were no roots more intimate
than those between a mind and body
that have decided to be whole
-Rupi Kaur
It may feel as though you are your illness, right now - as though your medical diagnosis is what defines you. It shapes the rhythm of your days, and underneath that rhythm pulses a steady stream of difficult emotions.
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Psychotherapy can help find ways to move through grief. It can help to support you when those around you don't have the bandwidth to do so. It can help you reconnect to sources of strength and meaning.
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A cure may not be available, and yet healing is still possible. Let's work to heal - body, mind, and heart - together.
