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Dr. Velazquez & Teja Zeribi talk about Facing Professional/Academic Life with FND

Patient-Provider Series w/ Dr. Velazquez: Facing Professional/Academic Life with FND. Talk #2 w/ Teja Zeribi.

functional disorders functional illnesses functional neurological disorders (fnd) functional symptoms healing fnd healthcare system holistic Jan 08, 2025

Teja Zeribi:

Everyone’s experience is different, but I wanted to highlight something about mine....

Watch FULL video interview on YouTube.

For the last six years, my health has shaped my experience of the world -including academic and professional, and has also shaped my recovery. At 15 years old, I spent about eight months inpatient on a medical ward for a separate non-functional condition. It was very isolating, because school had been my place to interact with friends and classmates. So, when health impacts your ability to engage in academic and professional life, it also impacts your social life, and your mental health. But participating in it from the hospital was also a huge source of motivation and happiness for me from the hospital: the time spent working on Math or LA was a distraction and brought a sense of normalcy. Since being diagnosed with FND, I’ve done everything from being a full time highschool student, university student in another country than family, work full time, and taking a medical leave of absence and done nothing academically/professionally -but the reality is I had FND during each of those periods, to various degree of impact on my day to day life. 

In the four years I have been diagnosed, I have felt a lack of balance and a constant turmoil or conflict between managing my health and my goals, but it wasn’t until this past semester and the start of my master’s program that I really felt the balance was achieved, or closer to. The main shift was I stopped allowing my health or my academic goals to define my sense of self. Yes, I have FND, but it isn’t all of who I am, and yes, I love school, but my success in it doesn’t define my worth. There is much more balance in all elements of my life. I listen to my body and respond accordingly without hyper fixating on discomfort. For example, if I am too tired to study one day after a lecture, I may choose to do something that feels more relaxing and restorative instead -and instead of this harming my academics, it actually prevents me from burning out or being completely exhausted and have brain-fog the following day in important lectures. This also means setting boundaries with providers on prioritizing the treatment and support that actually is helpful, and limiting unnecessary appointments or interventions (of course it is a shared decision). My academic success, health, and happiness, have all improved immensely -and most of all, my quality of life. But it has taken time for me to find this balance, and I still rely on external support from mentors, medical providers, and loved ones to guide me in navigating the world with FND. But ultimately -the things that felt in conflict, when I balanced their weight, helped me be more successful in both. 

The moral is, there were many times in the past four years where I was ready to give up on my bigger life goals because of my FND -something that was a detriment to my mental health and contributed to feelings of hopelessness and lack of self outside of FND. But even with taking time off, through perseverance, trial and error (often more error), I feel I have achieved the right balance. It is possible to accomplish what you want to -but it takes active effort to do it in a way that supports what your body wants and needs as well -which ultimately can only help your FND recovery. 

Watch FULL video interview on YouTube. Meet Teja!

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 Disclaimer: Dr. Velazquez has not had the chance to review the above article for scientific accuracy, nor she is endorsing any type of opinion, comment, suggestion, product or treatment possibly mentioned. You are the sole responsible for the interpretation of the data shared by our Patient Collaborators or Personal Experts. Whenever in doubt you can contact directly the person who wrote this Blog Post article and/or you can report it to Science & Shamanism, LLC, Dr. Velazquez and/or her designees. We will always try to help! Within the limitations of our human existence and capabilities, considering scarce time and high workload.

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