Let’s face it, living with a chronic illness is hard. There are days when you won’t feel like doing much because you won’t even feel like getting out of bed. Regardless of uphill battle, a better life awaits if we pace ourselves and redefine our priorities in light of living with a chronic illness.
As you change your mindset, you’ll have to proactively deal with the physical and mental symptoms of your chronic illness. This requires that you work on developing a positive mindset when you’re tired and stressed. When you get to this stage, you have come full circle from your diagnosis to acceptance. You will also be ready to take advice from doctors, physiotherapists, and counsellors about how to realign your life with your new reality.
Notice I said you should try to realign your life with your new reality of living with a chronic illness. This means that you have to rethink how you do some of the things you do in your life and reframe them. This is where changing your mindset comes in. This doesn’t mean that you must cancel your life or put it on hold. But it may mean that you have to re-prioritize things so that you focus on doing the most important ones first.
So, what does it mean to realign your life with your illness?
Here are a few things to consider.
- Decide what is truly important to you and pursue only these things. Declutter unimportant things from your life.
- Take frequent or regular rest breaks during the day and make them a part of your routine.
- Realize you can’t do everything at once nor please everyone. So, take care of yourself first and foremost.
- Take the time to come to terms with your illness. This means taking the time to become aware of what it means to live well, despite it.
By taking these steps, you will feel less frustrated and accepting of your new reality. Making peace with it is so important to or health and well-being.
Realize you’re not alone
There are millions of people living with arthritis, or some other chronic condition. Some people may be even younger than you are. This realization can put your situation into perspective.
For fifteen years, I presented workshops for The Arthritis Society on different aspects of managing the symptoms of arthritis and living a healthy life. I met a lot of younger people who were living with arthritis or some other debilitating chronic condition. One of my youngest participants was only 24 years old. She helped me put my own diagnosis at the age of 40 into perspective.
Further, many individuals diagnosed with some type of chronic illness struggle with pain, fatigue, and stiffness upon waking. So, as far as arthritis sufferers are concerned, we mostly experience similar realities. We struggle, have bad days and better days, and have difficulty sleeping. This is all part of living with a chronic condition. When we’re experiencing a lot of pain on a given day, living well can be hard.
But it is in our best interest to do so. Not only will our life be easier, but we won’t feel as overwhelmed and frustrated. And if we stress less, we will probably experience less pain and fatigue. So, it’s a win-win for us.
We just have to create a winning blueprint for our lives, one that doesn’t compare our lives to the way they used to be before the onset of chronic illness. Instead, we must create a life that charts a new path in our lives by honoring and accepting our life as it is now.
Irene Roth
Living With Chronic Illness 