Skip to main content

The Emotions of Chronic Illness

This may be an over share, but a few months ago, I was reading AARP. Not sure why I had it in my possession, but there was an article on chronic illness which struck my eye. It featured the NBC newscaster, Meredith Vieira, and her husband Richard Cohen who openly shared how his multiple sclerosis, which he has been dealing with since age 25. This degenerative disease has now taken his eyesight and Meredith spoke of the balance of realism and denial they have shared as she figures out how to balance their time together and her news career. She and her husband offer an honest and unique perspective as a couple is thriving despite this hard illness. One quote I found particularly inspiring.
"In some ways, the course of a chronic illness parallels the indignities of aging. Most of us, if we live long enough, will realize that we've driven our last car or scaled our last fence. But with chronic disease, the process is accelerated and tinged with cruelty. As we get older things are happening in the right time. We tend to be dealing with them with our peers. For a younger person with a chronic illness, it feels like a robbery, and its unfair. Anger is a natural reaction. Adapting to a chronic illness doesn't happen once though. It must happen over and over." 

This is a great way of acknowledging the anger and grief of dealing with a chronic illness. Unlike an acute illness like a broken bone or a short bout with mono, a chronic illness provides episode after episode throughout the lifespan in order to learn about the anger and emotions behind the illness. Often when we work with those who are younger facing a chronic illness diagnosis, we see a variety of responses, including denial, resilience, sadness, activism, or anger. All of these are natural reactions and will fluctuate from time to time. When you find yourself overwhelmed by any of the emotions of chronic illness, that is the perfect time to see a therapist who specializes in these issues. You are not alone, and can life a full and satisfying life despite your illness. 

Popular posts from this blog

So You Have IBD During a Pandemic

Hey! What's going on? Been pretty boring over here in Chicago. Ok I don't need to elaborate on what the hell is going on in the world. We are being bombarded with information - some accurate, a lot inaccurate - about this pandemic. It's very easy to become completely overwhelmed by it all. We've been forced, pretty damn quickly, to completely overhaul our way of life for the greater good. To reduce the strain on our healthcare system of the sick and dying. And us humans are generally bad with rapid, monumental change that we really don't have a lot of say in. Our little reptilian brains do what they're supposed to do (prime us for fight or flight or freeze) but our advanced "thinking" parts of our brain have to interject with all sorts of unhelpful thoughts, thereby sending some of us off the rails. Before we start, turn off the news. Seriously. In the days following 9-11 we found people who consumed more 24-hour news channel information were mor

Psychosocial aspects of having an ostomy

This past Saturday, Tiffany and I had the honor of speaking at the United Ostomy Associations of America's Regional Midwest conference. I was assigned the task of speaking to the patients, and Tiffany addressed the partners or caregivers. I wanted to share with you some of the highlights from my talk. I only had an hour for my session, and with about 100 people in the room, it was not nearly enough time. I love bullet points, so here you go: We are all different! Every ostomate is different and not one size fits all for the emotional/mental aspect either. Who had months to talk about an ostomy and weigh pros/cons? Who was this a more sudden decision for? Who had cancer? Who had IBD? Something else? Who had an ileostomy? colostomy? urostomy? Who has a temporary? Permanent? Multiple temporaries? What age where you when you got your ostomy? Under 20, 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s, 60+ Who was single when they got their ostomy? With a serious partner when they had it? Some find a stom

IBD & Medical Trauma

Medical trauma is such an under-recognized issue for the chronnically ill. It's a hard topic to talk about because it can seem like we are pointing fingers at healthcare workers. Maybe that's why there are only, now, 4 studies on the topic in patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). If you are someone who treats people with IBD please know I am not here to demonize or criticize. I am both a patient and a GI psychologist. I know the medical system from both sides. I know how messed up and broken it is. But ignoring this or rationalizing it away as only affecting a few folks is wrong. So let's talk about it. Post-traumatic stress (PTS) is the term we use for medical trauma due to technicalities in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for Mental Disorders (DSM-5) for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). PTS can be less severe that full on PTSD, or it can be full on PTSD. Regardless, the symptoms are identical: Feeling hypervigilant/on-edge (increased