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Posts tagged with “illness”

How Illness Can Be Lonely and What to Do About It

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“I wish I could show you, when you are lonely or in darkness, the astonishing light of your own being.” ~ Hafiz of Shiraz

When we think of illness, we don’t usually equate it with loneliness; however, there seems to be a huge connection between the two conditions.

The fact is, when dealing with health challenges, we are most connected to our bodies: we are one with ourselves. Even when we have thoughtful and caring loved ones in our inner circles, these individuals can never truly understand what we’re experiencing on a physical, psychological, and spiritual level.

Illness is …

What Helps Me When I Feel Down About My Chronic Illness

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“Faith is taking the first step even when you don’t see the whole staircase.” ~Martin Luther King Jr.

A few months back, before the pandemic upended life for all of us, I went through one of those times when I could do nothing but sit at home and rest for my health’s sake.

I’d recently had another one of my surgeries; I was born with a genetic condition called vascular malformation, which grew and spread quite rapidly on my left cheek and into the mouth during my childhood. It’s the reason I’ve been paying visits to operation theaters for all …

My Cat Had Cancer and Taught Me How to Cope with Illness

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“A cat purring on your lap is more healing than any drug in the world, as the vibrations you are receiving are of pure love and contentment.” ~St. Francis of Assisi

We all know what it is like to be sick. At some point in our lives we get the flu or a bad cold, but we know the course—get lots of rest and before you know it you are as good as new. But for some of us, we live with chronic illness.

Chronic illness brings with it day-to-day symptoms, the ones you cannot get away from. Coping with …

How to Love Yourself Through Cancer or Any Other Terrifying Diagnosis

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“If you want to see the sunshine, you have to weather the storm.” ~Frank Lane

One minute your life is just humming along, and out of nowhere you’re hit with a devastating diagnosis. Cancer.

Believe me, I know what it’s like to get the news you have cancer and to live with the trauma that follows, because I’m not only a licensed psychotherapist, I’ve been treated for both breast cancer and leukemia.

I know how that diagnosis changes everything. I know how the world around you can still look the same, but suddenly you feel like a stranger in your …

Healing Chronic Pain Is an Inside Job

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“Time is not a cure for chronic pain, but it can be crucial for improvement. It takes time to change, to recover, and to make progress.” ~Mel Pohl

Let’s face it, living with any kind of physical pain is a challenge. I understand that completely. In the fall of 2007, I contracted an extremely painful and debilitating condition, Thoracic Outlet Syndrome, a structural collapse that compresses the muscles, nerves, and arteries that run between the collarbones and first ribs.

Yet, as most of us do, I believed my condition would, naturally, clear up soon and the pain would leave. …

Why I Stopped Trying to Fix Myself and How I Healed by Doing Nothing

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“Everything in the universe is within you.” ~Rumi

When I was twenty-three, I lost my job through chronic illness. I thought my life had ended, and I spent the next few years an anxious, panicky mess—often hysterical. Eventually, I took off to scour the globe for well-being techniques, and searched far and wide for the meaning of life and how to become well again.

If you’re chronically ill, like I was, whether physically or emotionally, you’ve probably experienced the same misunderstanding, the same crazy-making “well, you look okay to me” comments, the same isolation, depression, and frustration that I …

Coping with Your Partner’s Life-Altering Medical Condition

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“We don’t know what’s causing it,” I say to friends for what feels like the hundredth time. My boyfriend has been unable to walk or stand without pain for two years. And no doctors can seem to figure out why.

We were in our early twenties and had only been dating for a few months before his leg issue started. What ensued was a harsh transition from a highly active couple hiking mountains on the weekends, to a sedentary couple that needed to take an Uber to a coffee shop just a few blocks away.

Our identities as individuals and …

Why Cancer Was the Beginning of My Life, Not the End

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“It is health that is real wealth and not pieces of gold and silver.” ~Mahatma Gandhi

Cancer.

I’ll never forget the moment the words fell from my doctor’s mouth. In one fell swoop, the “perfect” persona that I’d spent thirty-plus years carefully constructing received what would ultimately become a fatal blow. Following that fateful day of demarcation, my life would never again be the same.

But let me back up a bit.

By the time I’d arrived at my early thirties, I was cloaked in all the trappings of outward success: a lucrative career in the high-paced, high-stress …

Those Who Suffer from Mental Illness Are Stronger Than You Think

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What to Do When Someone You Love Is Sick and Struggling

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“Love is not what you say. Love is what you do.” ~Unknown

As a graduate student in public health, I spent my days talking about illness and death. Normal lunchtime conversations among students covered topics like: how to define a case of multiple sclerosis, the most effective strategy to stop HIV transmission among injection drug users, and the probability you’d be alive in five years after a breast cancer diagnosis.

None of this talk about illness remotely prepared me for the experience of illness. I was blissfully naive when I started dating a man named Evan with a cough …

Healing Is a Journey, Not a Destination (and You’re Not Broken)

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“Healing requires from us to stop struggling, but to enjoy life more and endure it less.” ~Darina Stoyanova

At the age of twenty-seven I was diagnosed with interstitial cystitis, chronic inflammation of the bladder that causes UTI like symptoms. I am now twenty-nine and still experiencing symptoms, but I have improved greatly.

I have spent that time searching for the answers to this medical enigma, for which doctors claim there is no cure. At first my research led me on a path of frustration and hopelessness, until I realized that my mindset was what was holding me back from healing.…

How a Major Crisis Can Sometimes Be a Blessing in Disguise

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“Pain can change you, but that doesn’t mean it has to be a bad change. Take that pain and turn it into wisdom.” ~Unknown

Ten years ago my life changed in a dramatic way. What I experienced in 2004 seemed like a major disaster at first, but it turns out that sometimes what seems like the worst life experience can actually be one of our biggest blessings.

In 2004, I was in graduate school, working toward a PhD in history. When I graduated from college in 2001, I wanted to be a professor. Well, that’s what I thought I wanted, …

Body Betrayal: How to Cope with Chronic Pain and Illness

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“As long as you make an identity for yourself out of pain, you cannot be free of it.” ~Eckhart Tolle

Up until fairly recently, I often felt betrayed by my body. It was always breaking down, leaving me frustrated and bitter.

No one else seemed to have as many problems.

I’ve had Juvenile Rheumatoid Arthritis, an inflamed gall bladder riddled with stones that ended in surgery. Chronic migraines, chronic hives, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.

Whenever I get sick, it never seems to be something trivial. A cold becomes bronchitis. Hayfever leads to a sinus infection.

One year after holidaying in Thailand, …

5 Powerful Things to Do for Yourself When You’re Sick

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“Your body is precious. It is our vehicle for awakening. Treat it with care.” ~Buddha

Getting sick is rarely, if ever fun for anyone, but we all get sick. You can cheat on your taxes, but you can’t cheat on sickness.

When we get sick, we all have a choice of how to work with illness. We can choose to be miserable or we can choose to learn about ourselves and grow from the experience. Since I have had such a hard time with the latter, I’ve investigated 5 ways to practice with illness.

1. Reflect on the benefit

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Being Sick Doesn’t Mean You’re Wrong: Enabling Real Healing

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“You must love in such a way that the person you love feels free.” ~Thich Nhat Hanh

A lot of people I know who have had chronic illness, including myself, have had a hard time letting go of the feeling of “wrongness” that arises with it, in the mind.

I sometimes wonder where this comes from. When I look at our culture I get a feeling for where we get these messages. It doesn’t, generally, seem to emmanate non-judgmental compassion!

In our age of consumerism, photoshopped bodies, and a million-ways-to-look-young-and-feel-great-forever, the body’s propensity to get ill is generally seen …

How Pain Teaches Us to Live Fully

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“The secret of joy is the mastery of pain.” ~Anais Nin

There have been times when I’ve experienced pain when all I wanted was for its cessation.

I’m not sure whether I’m “unique” in my experience of pain or in how many times in my life I’ve had to deal with physical pain. While I don’t consider myself “cursed” by it, I’ve endured enough of it to become somewhat of an “expert” on its presence and its effects.

Besides the normal cuts and scrapes that we all experience, I’ve had the (un?)fortunate luck of having had—at separate times in my …

Letting Go When It’s Time to Dream a New Dream

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“We must be willing to let go of the life we have planned, so as to accept the life that is waiting for us.” ~Joseph Campbell

Growing up in a family of medical professionals, I received an abundance of opportunities with the understanding that my “job” was school. There was immense pressure to bring home straight A’s. I internalized this pressure and spent hours in my room memorizing texts and studying for classes.

In my mind medicine was the only acceptable career for me. Family, friends, and teachers routinely asked if I wanted to go to medical school, and my …

The Intimacy of Loss: Being Together in this Fleeting Moment

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“We must embrace pain and burn it as fuel for our journey.” ~Kenji Miyazawa

I love my wife, so it stung the other day when she said, “Hmm … You’re going to have trouble letting me go, aren’t you?”

She’s not walking out on me. You see, she has multiple sclerosis (MS), and she’s referring to the day she can’t walk any more. She’s convinced herself that she can’t handle the guilt of ruining my life, and expects me to leave when she says so.

I knew Caroline had MS when I married her. I also knew I loved her.…