Mental Health & Emotional Support – Jenny

 

Jenny's reaction to the HF diagnosis was to joke and hide her feelings.

Transcript

I was really young. And I’m 23 in a hospital and I’m kind of – my coping was joking it, joking it off. Like this is a joke. This can’t, this isn’t happening. This is the joke, that this is happening, kind of idea. And (a nurse) looked at me and she’s like, do you understand what’s happening? I was like, ‘Yes. I have heart failure’. And I spit off everything, because I retain everything that all these doctors are telling me. And she’s like ‘OK, I’m glad you understand. You’re just, you’re joking it off. So I didn’t think you were taking this seriously.’

And I just started bawling. Is that what you want? Do you want me to just be sitting here crying the entire time? Because a lot of people would be, ‘oh you’re so like laughy and joking about it.’ It’s like yeah, or else I’ll be sitting over there in a ball. So I was – don’t get me wrong, I was extremely depressed about it. But that wasn’t other people’s burden. And if I was – I wanted to be the happy person that I was. My fiancé even mentioned, I’m not, I wasn’t just happy as I, happy go lucky as I was. And I think I am back now. But it was understandable. I was going through this huge trauma.


More from: