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Coping with Chronic Illness
Grief and loss over the healthy self
is a part of adaptation to living
with chronic illness. Appreciate that
family members grieve differently by
nature of personality and gender; don't
interpret not talking or being busy
as not caring. Give yourself permission
to be angry.for a while.
Chronic illness outcomes turn out differently
for everyone. The disease is
helped or hindered by fate, personality,
experiences, attitude and finally
behavior. We must concentrate on controlling
the parts we can, rather than
becoming lost in a worst-case scenario.
Individuals are not statistics.
Too much fear can paralyze us from acting
in our best interest. Excessive
anxiety can also result in depression,
anger and impatience. The nature of
compulsive worry-, which has no helpful
outcomes, in fact some hurtful ones-
is to take away the contentment of your
life now in anticipation of what
"could" happen (and may likely
not happen.) A delicate balance of "just
enough" worry can bring good things-
reevaluating, remotivating, planning
and discipline-, all destined to improve
health. Please consider getting
professional help, a preventive treatment,
if the person or family members
with chronic illness are suffering beyond
a normal grief response.
Prevention matters. Complications are
often reduced, eliminated, reversed
or halted with proactive care.
Psychological adjustments to health
problems are more arduous than the
behavior changes.and they often have to
come first or be revisited. A
positive mental attitude is not only good
for you because you feel better,
but because you do better. Attitude has
much to do with the way you handle
your health; we must allow for imperfection
and promote resiliency. We can
concentrate on the positive strengths,
interests, and traits that we do have
to buffer our disappointments. This positive
use of personal psychology,
"learned optimism" can influence
behavior as well as the immune system.
My
suggestion is that individuals take the
position emotionally that they will
be healthy when attending to their care,
even imperfectly, and work on
becoming resilient to setbacks. Make sure
anxiety or your mood is not
dictating a lack of constructive care.
Strive for normalcy within
limitations.
Families must adjust to chronic illness
as well. The temptation for
parents or spouses, consumed by fear,
is to go through cycles of being over
controlling or withdrawing. While this
works in the present, it may lead to
depression and rebellion in the person
with chronic illness. How we decide
to take care of ourselves is always evolving
and hopefully within a context
of an entire medical team. Find support
in the form of friends and family,
reading and talking, using a good medical
team regularly, and matching you
with other families who have the same
illness to cope with.
Bad things happen to good people; figure
out the meaning of illness.
Cope with attitude, humor, exercise,
nutrition, spirituality,
socialization, and consider therapy and
medication for mood.
Let me end with a story about a 50-year-old
patient, "Simon" who had
diabetes since the age of 10. When I met
him, 20 years ago. Simon had spent 40
years living with diabetes. He was completely
healthy and entirely miserable for most
of his life. He came into the office for
what he thought, finally, was a complication
of diabetes-sexual dysfunction. After
a thorough medical and psychological evaluation,
Simon learned that his
impotence was psychological. The news
was a relief to him and a great frustration.
When Simon was 18, thinking of college,
but believing he probably wouldn't
live a long life because of his diabetes,
he said, "Why bother?" When
Simon got married, and the ordinary strains
of marriage were being worked out, using
the same pessimistic philosophy, he said,
"Why Bother" When Simon's business
began to fail, and he should have borrowed
money to revitalize and save it, he said,
" Why bother?"
The terrible irony was that now Simon
was bothered. He was depressed and
angry that none of the complications that
he so feared and planned for had
happened. The fear of them had changed
his goals and pleasures. While
waiting for complications to happen, he
had not put his energy into making
his life satisfying, happy, and healthy.
(Taken from my book, When
Diabetes Hits Home)
The lessons of 9-11 have made the whole
world have to think about living
with chronic stress- something people
with chronic illness have already had
to figure out by themselves. People are
trying to make "healthy denial and
healthy practices" as well as improved
priorities our mantra.
Choose optimism, not an easy job. Clinically
proven, it will prolong and
improve the quality of your life.
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