Chronic Illness and Health Challenges
If you had a choice…
Between eating tacos for the rest of your life or living with an illness every day, would you choose hard or soft tacos?
Yeah, getting a medical condition is like getting dealt a big pile of you-know-what. Of course, you'd like to wake up tomorrow morning and not feel like crap. But the worst part is not feeling any control over your life. One minute you're doing okay, and then *boom* another day in bed, a surprise surgery, or a big health setback.
Your illness has cost you a lot
You’re a person who wants to do a lot of things, trapped in the body of a person who wants to sleep all day. Your relationships are changing (or failing). It's hard to go to work. Screentime limits are out the window and you’ve given your kids your Netflix password. That romantic trip to Italy is out of the question. You can't remember the last time you had a conversation about something other than illness. Your aches and pains have their own aches and pains.
You don’t know what to do
Every coping skill you ever learned is as worthless as a soup sandwich. You blame yourself. You blame your parents for feeding you hot dogs with nitrates (that's why you got sick, right?). You've reached your maximum number of depressing "I'm-still-sick" Instagram posts, and you're afraid people will start unfollowing you.
You’ve been trying really hard
Some days you fight hard against your illness and think you're winning. And then you lose miserably and wonder why you fought so hard.
Other days you say SCREW IT! and throw your hands in the air. Then you worry illness will take over your life.
You'd like to find a happy balance, where you can handle everything illness throws you.
Stop Struggling. Start LIVING.
Chronic illness and medical conditions have this way of infiltrating nearly everything. Finding an area of your life that is not affected by your health is challenging. In addition to disease-specific symptoms, you may be dealing with strong emotions, pain, and fatigue.
When you aren’t feeling well (or don't feel good about yourself), you may prefer to be alone, so you isolate yourself from friends and social activities. You may feel a loss of control, sadness, worry, and uncertainty about what lies ahead. Prolonged stress can lead to frustration, hopelessness, numbness, and sorrow.
Pretty soon, your stress begins to shape your feelings about life in general, not just today’s frustrations.
We all will experience illness, pain, and suffering at one time or another, but few of us are equipped to deal with it. All too often, we respond in self-defeating or self-destructive ways.
Therapy can help you learn skills to manage your painful experiences so that they will have much less impact and influence. Your focus will no longer be on reducing symptoms or waiting to feel better; instead, you’ll focus on moving towards a rich, full, and meaningful life while letting go of the battle with pain and discomfort.
How I Can Help
For some people, their medical condition completely disrupts their life. For others, it presents a less earthshaking but still challenging set of logistical and practical obstacles to deal with. There are a number of different ways that therapy can be helpful throughout a wide range of degrees of distress.
Navigating a new, life-altering medical diagnosis
Living with an undiagnosed or mysterious illness
Managing multiple illnesses at the same time
Dealing with relentless physical symptoms
Blaming yourself for being sick
Advocating for your health care needs
Missing out on things you used to do
Feeling limited in your body
Dealing with the disappointment of failed treatments
Depression, anxiety, anger, and other difficult feelings
The discomfort of not knowing what the future holds
Adjusting to changing family dynamics and societal roles
Having your illness minimized, misunderstood, or dismissed by others
Adjusting to changes your body image, quality of life, and relationships
Financial anxiety
Medical fears, phobias, and avoidance
Concerns about death
TODAY
A Rich and Meaningful Life is Possible Right Now
“Do you know anything about my diagnosis?”
While I’ve worked with clients with many different medical diagnoses, it’s possible that I don’t know much about your illness, injury, or disability. It’s also possible that you don’t have a diagnosis at all, and that feels like a big part of the problem.
Unless I suspect that your symptoms might impact your ability to communicate, think, or reason, I don’t typically research your diagnosis. Instead, I prefer to hear your account of what it’s like to live in your body. Your experience matters most.
But for those who are curious (and those searching for a therapist using these keywords), here are some of the diagnoses my clients have come in with:
Cancer, Crohn’s disease, ulcerative colitis, multiple sclerosis, diabetes, Parkinson’s disease, dementia, Alzheimer’s, psoriatic arthritis, psoriasis, Addison’s disease, POTS, brain injury, fibromyalgia, chronic pain, vestibular problems, chronic migraine, COPD, Sjögren’s syndrome, muscular dystrophy, Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, narcolepsy, HIV, Graves disease, liver disease, chronic fatigue syndrome, interstitial cystitis, kidney disease, Celiac disease, Lyme disease, neurological issues, COVID, Hashimoto’s thyroiditis, endometriosis, rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, severe injury, prosthesis from various causes, rare and mysterious illness, as well as secondary medical conditions and trauma related to medical interventions.