Dolor is a personal company aiming to help those who suffer from stress, depression, or pain to become their best selves once again.
Are you exhausted?
Bothered by
“Burnout”?
“Occupational burnout”?
“Exhaustion disorder”?
“Exhaustion syndrome“?
It doesn’t matter what you call it as long as it’s the same thing. Did the stress get you? Are you broken down into something unrecognizable? Ruined and without any energy whatsoever?
To get better from this, you’ll have to treat it appropriately. You could just rest passively and hope for the best, but that’s not much of a strategy. It should be treated in a through-through way, and you need to get a grip on your situation. Why did you end up here, and how could it be avoided in the future?
Do you feel depressed?
Does it feel hopeless?
Are you no longer interested, but rather just overwhelmed with negativity?
Depression comes in various forms.
Negative emotions. Insomnia and anxiety. Tired, cognitive issues and most things seem dark and harsh. Nothing really brings the joy as it used to.
It’s common to see no improvement whatsoever without proper treatment. It could go on year after year. I tend to see the more long-term versions, like dysthymia or treatment-resistant depression, since people begin treatment the more “standard way” – through anti-depressants. When that doesn’t work, they’ll continue their search for solutions… If there’s any will left to fight afterward.
Do you suffer from long-term pain?
Perhaps it started as something that should heal, and you had hope – or you’ve got a life-long diagnosis or injury?
Pain and long-term pain are different things.
I might be able to help if you suffer from just physical pain as well.
Regardless, it’s possible to treat with MORE than just medication. Is it starting to take its toll? Has it done so for quite some time? Is it digging into every aspect of life and ruining everything you once held dear?
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People with these problems are far too often treated far too inadequately.
The common nominator is often, but not necessarily, life as a whole and that endless life puzzle. It could go hand in hand with pathology, genetics, or social situations that add a heavier load than you can carry.
A tough situation could make things heavy enough to get you into a negative spiral. A bigger burden gives you less capacity to handle it, making it excel even more until it’s completely out of hand. Medication rarely solves the entire problem there…
Stress, depression, or pain could be symptoms of something rather than the main problem. It doesn’t have to be something pathological, and it doesn’t have to last forever, even though it might feel that way. They’ve all got in common how they both affect – and are affected by – life as a whole, where a biopsychosocial perspective is necessary to treat effectively.
You could either require a handful of “specialists” if you feel as if you need “licensed professionals” when you want help with these things and go for physicians/psychiatrists, psychologists, physiotherapists, dieticians, manual therapists, and similar – or one to handle you, and get a good perspective of everything. You don’t want too many chefs in the kitchen – but you do want someone with a good birds-eye view and experience of this to get good results.
Teams are great, and being able to study one thing and laser focus on that one could be awesome… if you need that amount of immense knowledge in one subject. In these cases, I’m quite sure a team isn’t necessary, and it’s rare to see teams take in people and care for every single aspect of them – which is why I’m doing this.
Exhaustion is far too often ignored for too long. If you reach the bottom, it could take months or years to recover. Act as early as possible to increase your chances of a good recovery. Do you avoid doing something about it because it’s hard to get help or because you’ll be fine anyway? Where are you heading?
Depressed persons often need the same eclectic approach for a great outcome, which is rare to see. The best-case scenario is often to see a CBT therapist. That’s great – but I want people to have even more. Depression could cost you practically every ounce of quality of life, and it won’t just pass like the flu. To get a change, you’ll have to act to get it. It could go on for years, and just depending on medication could be risky.
Long-term pain is similar. Don’t just depend on those drugs. You need to look wider. From what I’ve seen, that pain often affects everything. Research tells us that more and more… and experience tells me more and more that people get drugs and nothing else. Pain can come from several things, but they’ve all got one thing in common – it’s possible to influence the suffering of pain by managing you and your life with the same biopsychosocial perspective – the big picture matters.
These problems could affect you slightly… or all the way to suicide. Initially, one of them will cause lower quality of life, but as they progress and debilitate more and more, they might make life entirely hopeless. Acting earlier stops the slippery slope before it’s too long gone.
Why treat all three?
Something rarely mentioned is that one thing tends to cause the other. They go hand in hand in hand and that’s of great importance. I explain that in the blog post below.
The book!
One thing giving the other makes this more complex. It makes things messy and you often need several tools to get better when you’re in that mess. If you’re in trouble where it affects every aspect of life, you’ll need a decent overview and a good enough guide to get you through that, in a good way. That’s my experience, after having met quite some people who’ve failed at doing it themselves for years. Changing all of you and everything you do is HARD.
That’s why I wrote a book. It’s to give decent enough perspective and insight into how I work and how I reason when I help people. If you prefer to do things yourself – get that book here. If you feel like getting hands-on help for this, contact me directly instead.
Statistics
Stress bothers more and more people, which is shown by the fact that more of us are getting ill enough to be unable to work. The psychiatric diagnoses lead to more extended sick leave than most other illnesses. When those become more common, we don’t just suffer more, but we suffer for longer. Too much stress for too long until you reach your breaking point can put you out of business for months or years; that’s quite some time compared to most other things.
14% of those between 16 and 84 feel stressed. But does that number cover all of them? I’ve met people who’ve ignored the situation and kept going for weeks and months until they practically collapsed.
Some sources say:
More than half of those with employment feel overwhelmed by their workload.
The duration of sick leave increases because mental issues get more common.
About 75% of those on sick leave for exhaustion syndrome are women.
WHO tells us that mental illness is on the rise and the most significant future threat to peoples’ health.
Depression bothered about 1% of those born a century ago.
Today, some sources point to one of four women and one of ten men.
Other sources say:
15-20% are depressed right now.
50% of all women and 25% of all men suffer from depression at some point.
20% get affected enough to seek medical attention.
In 2020, 41% of the population was bothered by anxiety or worry, and 4% got a diagnosis of depression.
Pain bothers nearly half of Sweden’s population, and 15% are troubled by severe pain. Pain seems to be the most common reason to seek medical attention, whereas stress is the most significant cause of sick leave. Comorbidity is common (which is why we want to look at all three!) between them, and they are the biggest cause of long-term sick leave. The opioid crisis is there for a reason.
Why and how?
These statistics – and where we’re heading – are crazy. That’s why I’m doing this. That – and because the approach I’ve found seems to work unreasonably well, compared to what people are most commonly offered.
I help those exhausted from long-term stress, suffering from depression, or long-term pain to take control of their lives once again and be their best self. That’s done through a comprehensive approach that looks to all aspects of life. That includes changing behaviors, physical exercise, diet, tending to social aspects, and finding solutions to sleep issues. Pacing, CBT, and ACT to reflect on what’s important to be able to focus more on what truly matters.
When I coach, I want to help you with everything, from behavioral changes, rehab training, and manual therapy to treat pain. I use a bio-psycho-social approach to look at all aspects of life.
This is done either through personal meetings where we physically meet up for coaching or digitally.
The goal of the digital version is to reach more people than I can do in person with the obvious geographic limitations of a physical meeting. Pandemic-safe and without the travel time.
Coaching seems to work just fine even without physical meetings, as more and more people have noticed during the pandemic. Discussing and learning how to take care of oneself, life, and all its aspects is the same regardless of if it’s done physically or digitally. It IS more personal to do in person, but it sure works digitally if we can’t meet up. The difference is practically if I get to teach you – or teach you and nudge you in the right direction.
The hardest part is manual therapies. If I can’t touch you, I won’t be able to poke and prod muscles and joints, but it’s ideal for you to learn to take care of yourself anyway. That’s my goal when I help people in person, so when I do help people with manual therapies, I teach them at the same time, to get them doing the work over time. I don’t want people dependent on me. I want to teach and help you on your way. So regardless of if you’re close by or further off, we’d tend to the same things.
Meeting up locally
Doing it here allows us to get a closer relationship and discuss even more profound troubles. For some, this makes the difference because it becomes personal enough so they can open up. That might be what allows us to get forward. We get better discussions through better topics, where we feel safe enough to dig deep enough into them. That might be crucial to make the progress they need to get forward.
Some can find it more relaxing to be outside and take a walk while taking tough discussions. The walk-and-talk strategy is highly likely to make people sea-sick rather than comfortable when used digitally.
Doing it while taking a walk is a way that is comfortable and pleasant for many people compared to sitting in a small room in a chair and just staring at someone else when talking. Doing it the “classic” way, two people in a room, perhaps sitting in a chair each and watching each other’s every move, might feel uncomfortable or really, really clinical.
That might not be very helpful.
When taking a walk, it doesn’t matter if it’s silent for a few moments when someone’s thinking about something or digesting some new input. It’s closer to a relaxed conversation between friends…
If we meet up locally, it’s possible to exercise together, which makes it more instructive.
If I’m there, it’s far easier to treat manually. Doing it the other way, I could teach you, but you’ll do it yourself.
Using the body in some way is always a part of the treatment. There’s none out there who doesn’t need a good, adequate dose of physical exercise. If you don’t know what that is, it could be helpful to get some help. Some feel exceptionally good when they exercise hard and blow off all that steam and stress but get nothing but positive out of it afterward. Some can barely use their bodies before they get in serious trouble, decline energy-wise, and get more of all their (often stress-related) symptoms. Some have never exercised and have no idea how to, even though strength training could help them a ton. If that’s the case, some guidance could do wonders.
Exercise needs to be balanced. That’s often the hard part. Hard enough, but not too hard. If that level is too hard to find, you could use some help.
Having the freedom to get outside and do things locally might be used to doing things other than just walking and talking, which bigger institutions rarely tend to do. There’s a good bunch of examples that I’ve done with clients “out there” where people ask if “this really is a part of the program?”.
Doing it together physically might make CBT treatment easier. Changing things or doing uncomfortable things might be easier with some company.
Using CBT to be able to drive a car again could be one thing. That could be uncomfortable but valuable to regain the freedom to go and do whatever you want. To be in an accident or incident where you learn to fear cars or driving, so you get such a stress response when getting into a car that you can’t be there, is quite the handicap. Perhaps it gives you such anxiety that you freak out entirely and don’t dare or want to drive. You might want to get rid of those emotions when that’s the case. Solving that might be easier if someone’s by your side. Someone you trust who’ve done it before.
Fear of the dark has been treated with a similar CBT approach. Doing what’s scary or perhaps even terrifying might feel impossible to do yourself, but with someone there with you, it might just be possible to do – to be able to make the progress you need.
Panic attacks have been treated. They generally need to be treated where they are provoked – so we need to be in an uncomfortable environment.
In similar manners, I’ve treated clients and regained plenty of freedom and self-esteem. That can make a big difference and normalize a big part of everyday life.
Orthorexia or being bothered by strange eating patterns or pure eating disorders are hard to tend to by just talking about them. Perspective or even tending to why might work far better.
Social anxiety has been treated.
Sprints have been made.
Appetite has been found, and the joy around food has been rediscovered – to appreciate it once more.
There’s been some heavy dead-lifts.
Death and values have been the topic at graveyards. “What’s actually worth doing, tending to, and thinking about in this short time we’re here?”
Social aspects have been tossed around. Should one keep relationships that you suffer from? Could divorce be the best solution? “Should you talk to your mum about this?”
Technique while running has been discussed, practiced, and repeated.
Mindfulness practice. Look at small things. Breathe. Pick some flowers. Feel your feet. Eat and taste things mindfully, like fruit and berries…
Life is vast – and to solve your troubles, you’ll need to be comfortable talking about what’s truly important – your actual problems. My ambition is that you should be safe doing so with me, and doing it locally might be helpful.
The digital solution
Is supposed to give you less travel time and make you less dependent on others but still work the same wonders and achieve just the same result!
If you prefer to go with a parallel:
When you’re looking for those four-leaf clovers, you could just look for them without having a clue… Or someone could help you find said fortune. I could help you because I’ve got a decent enough idea about where to find them.
To find what you’re looking for to get better if you’re suffering from stress, depression, or pain you’ll need to search diligently – or ask someone who knows where to find whatever you’re looking for. Nothing ever really fixes itself. Doing what you’ve done this far has taken you where you are today. If you want something else, you’ll have to do something else – and change is hard. It requires active effort and struggle.
I love guiding people with that. Because it seems to work so very well and what I’ve done with people before has given such lovely results.
Except for changes in lifestyle to do something about the situation at hand, complicated cases usually need more than one treatment method. Complicated problems require an eclectic approach and a broader perspective. You – or we – need to go at it in a bunch of ways to get the ideal results. It’ll always include teachings about how to tend to life, surroundings, mind, and body.
We generally aim for you to get better and independent. It’s common to see that the clients don’t need other solutions than this one to manage.
Just described you to my mum as PRICELESS.
A.Å
You ARE priceless. For real.
You’ve done more for me today than my psychologist have done in a year!
L.T
Do you know what I love about you? That you get SO happy for my progress you SHINE. It gives me such a boost and such energy to go forward when I see that someone can be so happy for my progress.
A.R
Patric, thank you very much for not only helping me get out of a depression, and getting rid of pain, with your coaching, “needling” and your positive attitude, but also that you got me to start exercising (and to think it’s fun! ), and have energy over! As we said when we last met, we did this together!
C.S
