Without a doubt, chronic illness changes your view of your world and your life. It quite literally changes your physical capabilities – at least for the short term – and most likely your perception of yourself. Depending on your orientation to the world before the onset of your symptoms – as one reader recently commented – you may discover strengths you didn’t know you possessed, or frailties and needs you’d not previously experienced. Either way, this is no time to go it alone. You need people in whole new ways, and as a result you may see the people in your life differently. Just as you have to consider who to tell and what to disclose at work you have to run through similar checks and balances when you consider who to include on your personal support team.
When you’re in pain it’s not always easy to be discerning. In the beginning you may not even know how you feel about your illness, or what you really need. People whom you’ve considered strong allies in your life may not be the right people to support you now, and that’s frightening. As with any relationship, when you change the dynamics some people will be right there with you and others no longer fit.
Looking back, I can see how much the mix of people I associate with has changed, and how much better I’ve become trusting my own wisdom. People with opinions about how I could get better if I just did “X” are not a part of my life. Those who might see me as “a poor thing” are certainly not a part of my inner circle. A doctor who insisted on his way or the highway was fired. Jobs that I determined were not a match for my ambition, or my well being, were left behind.
Healing (in spirit if not always in body) requires discernment of the highest order. Perhaps the strength it takes to survive and thrive under new rules also gives us the strength to make better decisions on our own behalf.
Joan
Diana says
Hi Joan,
“Discernment” is an excellent word choice for describing a key skill we must develop. Almost nothing that comes at me is clear. I appreciate your essay because it encouraged me to reflect on how my advocates and friends have shifted over time, sometimes cyclically: It has also been a learning process for them as well as my doctors. I am forced to align my decisions with my newly forged value set, and perhaps this reinforcement is a source of strength and the beginning of a sort of Phoenix process (though I am sure to crash and burn again!)
I am coming through a very bad month during which I was essentially useless at work. But I want to keep my job, so I have to change my “rules” in accord with the limitations imposed by my illness. (But what continues to be unclear for me is the extent to which my illness versus my mind imposes. How “sick” am I really, and should I be pushing myself harder?) Many of my character weaknesses and fears (inability to meet deadlines, being hounded by people on voicemail and by email, suffering the unhappy looks from my employees, etc.) have been brought to the fore. For a while I felt as if I no longer had any dignity and could stoop no lower. For the first time in my life I am crafting a self-friendly environment and not worrying so much about what people think.
To get going again, I am reduced to committing to a single work task each day, otherwise I become overwhelmed and subsequently paralyzed. But more than ever, I appreciate each “event” in my life because of the slow motion through which I experience it. The changes for me due to my illness have (sometimes serious) ramifications for the people associated with me at work. I’ve found that developing discernment is critical for me in moving back into the flow of life, but it is critical for my co-workers, too, in receiving me.
Diana