Living with Focal Dystonia
Many times I have heard someone to say: “I am a hypertensive or diabetic person,” or “I am a dystonic musician.”
All these are labels that we put on ourselves are not giving us anything positive and do not contribute at all to overcome the disease or condition that affects us.
Why? Because bye this, we create such a strong identification with the pathology, that we forget who we really are. This is not only applicable when we are affected by a disease, but also when any unfavorable situation that comes in our life leads us to say phrases such as “I am an unhappy person”.
I would even go one step further and say that if we become strongly identified with our profession, we can fall prey with a social identity strictly related to it, so if at some time of our lives we are unable to practice our profession, we will fall out of favor, because our mind will tell us that we are in danger of losing our identity, or in other words, ceasing to exist.
I do believe that we are much more than that. There is a true self rooted in Being.
Maybe it’s a positive step towards recovery, to understand that Musician’s Focal Dystonia is just a circumstance in our life. An unpleasant situation we are going through, but fortunately we should consider that a temporary situation.
The fact of not to label MFD as a disease, takes power out of it and let us look at it as a symptom that we must accept and stop fighting against it, in order to overcome it.
Meanwhile, our life, in the highest sense, must go on.
There are people who can help us to overcome MFD, but a few of them tell us how to live with it and continue working as a musician, while we are retraining.
From my personal experience, I recommend you to keep making music in all its possible fields, even those that you never imagined to cover because you were too focused on your own instrument. That will enrich you as a musician and you’ll be surprised.
