“AFTER being told that I had a
life-threatening disease,” recalls an elderly man, “I tried to put my fears
aside, but feelings of uncertainty wore me down.” His words highlight the fact
that after an illness has delivered a physical blow, it lands an emotional one
as well. Even so, there are people who are successfully coping with such blows.
Many of them would like to assure you that there are ways to deal successfully
with a chronic illness. But before we discuss what you can do, let us first
take a closer look at some of the emotions that you may face early on.
Disbelief,
Denial, Dysphoria
The
emotions that you feel may differ considerably from those of others. Nevertheless,
health experts and ailing individuals note that people struck by a health
crisis often experience a number of common emotions. Initial feelings of shock
and disbelief may be followed by feelings of denial: ‘It can’t be true.’ ‘There
must be some mistake.’ ‘Maybe they mixed up the lab tests.’ In describing her
reaction to learning that she had cancer, one woman said: “You feel like
pulling the covers over your head, and you hope that when you look out again it
will all be gone.”
However,
as reality begins to sink in, denial may give way to dysphoria, a feeling of
unhappiness that hangs over you like a cloud of impending doom. ‘How long will
I live?’ ‘Am I doomed to spend the rest of my life in pain?’ and similar
questions may assault you. You may wish you could go back in time, before the
diagnosis, but you cannot. Soon you may find yourself engulfed in a tide of
other painful and powerful emotions. What are some of them?
Uncertainty,
Anxiety, Fear
A
grave illness thrusts severe uncertainty and anxieties into your life. “The
unpredictability of my situation makes life very frustrating at times,” says a
man with Parkinson’s disease. “Each day, I have to wait and see what it will
bring.” Your illness may also frighten you. If it struck without warning, you
may feel a crushing fear. However, if the diagnosis of your illness has come
after you have spent long years fretting about symptoms that were misdiagnosed,
the fear may be more insidious. At first, you may even feel a sense of relief
that people will finally believe that you are really ill and are not making
everything up. Before long, though, relief may be followed by a fearful
realization of what the diagnosis entails.
Fear
of losing control may also worry you. Especially if you value a measure of
independence, you may cringe at the thought of becoming more and more dependent
on others. You may worry that your illness is beginning to dominate your life
and dictate your every move.
Anger,
Shame, Loneliness
Sensing
a growing loss of control may also trigger feelings of anger. ‘Why me? What did
I do to deserve this?’ you may ask yourself. This blow to your health seems
unfair and senseless. Shame and despair may also overtake you. One paralytic
recalls: “I felt so ashamed that all of this had happened to me because of a
stupid accident!”
Isolation
may also close in on you. Physical isolation easily leads to social isolation.
If your illness confines you to your home, you may no longer be able to
socialize with old friends. Yet, more than ever, you long for human contact.
After an initial burst of visits and phone calls, fewer and fewer may stop by
or call you.
Since
it hurts to watch friends pull away, you may have reacted to this painful
experience by withdrawing into yourself. Of course, it is understandable that
you may need some time before you face others again. But if at this point you
allow yourself to withdraw ever further from others, you may sink from social
isolation (when others do not come to see you) into emotional isolation (when
you do not want to see others). Either way, you may be struggling with intense
feelings of loneliness.*
At times, you may even wonder if you can make it through another day.
Learning
From Others
There
is hope, however. If you have recently been engulfed by a health crisis, there
are practical steps you can take that will help you to regain a measure of
control.
Granted,
this series of articles will not resolve your chronic health problem, whatever
it is. Yet, the information presented may help you to see ways to come to terms
with it. A woman with cancer summed up her mental journey: “After the denial
came much anger and then the search for my resources.” You too can make that
search, by turning to people who have traveled the same road before you and
learning from them how you can tap into the resources that are within your
reach.
Culled from AWAKE Magazine
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