4 Crucial Life Lessons I Gained in a Leprosy Hospital
#3: We need pain
In my 20s, I spent some time in Bangladesh helping out in a leprosy hospital.
Like many people, I thought leprosy was an extinct disease that made your limbs drop off, but neither of those are true. Modern leprosy (Hansen’s disease) isn’t the biblical-type that first comes to mind.
It’s a mildly infectious disease which attacks your skin, nerves, upper respiratory tract, and eyes. But it’s easy to detect and is completely curable if you find it early enough.
You learn a lot when confronted with prejudice and pain. Here are 6 things I learned from the incredible people at the leprosy hospital:
1. Shame is how you lose your limbs or your life
One of the youngest patients I met — in his early 20s — came from a community who believed Leprosy is shameful, so he refused to get treatment.
His fingers slowly lost all feeling. Then one night, he held a lantern while he worked. The hot metal handle melted through his numb fingers and when the lantern crashed to the ground, it was too late.
I sat with him as we watched the doctor stitch what was left of his fingers back together. He winced and talked through a translator about how ashamed he was.
One of the most harmful aspects of stigma is that people are too ashamed to admit they have the disease. This delays diagnosis and treatment, making the outcome far more serious than it needs to be. — Leprosy Mission, New Zealand
The lesson for us
You might be thinking what I did at the time: “How silly to be ashamed of a curable illness.”
But we do the same in our society with mental illness. We’re too ashamed to talk about it or ask professionals for help; too embarrassed to go on medication or seek therapy. But mental illnesses left untreated are disabling, even fatal.
- Don’t downplay emotional pain. It deserves our attention. Seek out an expert, just like you would if you were in physical pain. Mental illness is no more shameful than a broken leg.
2. No, you’re not okay on your own
We understand being afraid of a disease and there’s a lot of stigma around leprosy. Superstition leads some people to think you’re cursed, or bought leprosy on yourself through your immoral behavior. Others are scared because they think it’s incurable.
I met one mother with a tiny baby who’d been shunned from the village she’d grown up in; the village she’d started her family in. All she had left was her child and the small hospital community.
The psychological impacts can be equally as devastating [as the disease].
Leprosy-affected individuals and families are often rejected by their loved ones, excluded from their communities, and forced to live in shame and isolation. — Leprosy Mission, New Zealand
The lesson for us
During lock-downs, we learned first hand the impact of isolation. Making real-life connections is draining, difficult, and time-consuming, but also important.
A national US survey in 2018, found loneliness levels had reached an all-time high. 20,000 U.S. adults were surveyed and nearly half said they felt alone. 40% said they felt that their relationships weren’t always meaningful and they felt isolated.
How much time do you put aside to meet and connect with people in real life? We know from research, loneliness affects your health, so we need to make our relationships a priority. When we’re struggling with our health, connecting with others also becomes more difficult. It’s a vicious cycle.
- Volunteer in your community, join a club, visit the library and make small talk with someone. All of those small interactions add up and improve your quality of life.
3. When you feel yourself go numb, notice
I spent a day testing people for leprosy with a piece of fishing nylon. An early sign of leprosy is losing sensation in your fingertips and palms. Many of the people I was testing worked tough jobs and hadn’t noticed their fingers going numb.
Physical and emotional pain in our lives is an indicator. It helps us avoid harm, get help, and make changes. When we’re numb, something is wrong.
Physical and emotional pain in our lives is an indicator. When we’re numb, something is wrong.
I experienced this in my 20s. I didn’t notice my stomach pain and anxiety, and had developed Crohn’s disease. After surgery, the doctor asked me, “How is it possible you didn’t feel any pain?”
I’d spent years ignoring my body and mind’s signals — I’d become numb and ended up sick and burned out.
The lesson for us
Physical numbness is a symptom of leprosy, but emotional numbness is a symptom of depression. Notice it and seek out professional help. Just like leprosy, it’s treatable.
Emotional numbness, also called “affective blunting.” It can be linked with states like dissociation or depersonalization — feelings of being disconnected from yourself, your emotions, or your surroundings.
The good news is, emotional numbness is usually temporary and treatable. — I Feel Nothing: How to Cope with Emotional Numbness, Psychcentral
4. Self-care isn’t a luxury spa day
To avoid further damage to their bodies, the patients at the leprosy hospital spent hours scrubbing their feet and tending to themselves. They became very grounded in their own bodies and got to know and care for every inch.
Self-care was essential and prescribed by the medical team.
The lesson for us
Our self-care is essential too. It’s not just occasionally treating ourselves to a massage. We need to listen to our bodies, get to know them, and find balance. When you’re grounded in your body, you eat well, move, and rest when you need to.
You also need to do fun things for your mental health: creative, relaxing, silly pointless things.
- How much of what you do relates to work or doing things for other people? Do you do anything that’s just for you? Do you know your body and take care of it the way it needs?
Quick Summary for Memory
- Don’t let shame be the thing that holds you back from being healthy and well. There’s nothing shameful about physical or mental illness.
- Community matters. Prioritize time to connect with people in real life.
- Numbness is a symptom to pay attention to. We need pain: it tells us something is wrong.
- Self-care isn’t just bubble baths and massages (although it could be), it’s getting to know what you need to be well.
202,256 new leprosy cases were registered globally in 2019 and currently more than 5 million families are affected. World Leprosy Day is in January. Check out how to help or donate.