Does chronic illness leave you feeling like a square peg in a round hole? Funny thing. Regardless of what causes it, feeling different just doesn’t feel good.
Last week, my husband, Jake, and I saw a terrific musical, In the Heights, with our daughters. Small wonder it’s a Tony Award winner — the music and dancing were outstanding. The story resonated with each of us and in different ways.
I related to the lead character – a young, first generation Hispanic woman. When she left her NYC neighborhood (the Heights) for Stanford University, she found that her life experience had made her a different person from those around her. She was devastated feeling so alone– until she found a way to move beyond this.
In my late 20’s, I became an “outsider” when I became seriously ill with multiple sclerosis. My days revolved around issues that consumed my grandmother — not a newly married young woman. Bad sleep, incontinence, pain, fatigue, doctor’s appointments and tests. And worst of all, what I couldn’t do!
In my 30’s, other couples had babies without thinking about it while we planned our every move. In my 40’s, friends chattered about balancing work and family while I struggled to get through the day. My career? Like a car whose battery would start, stutter, stall and magically start again — only to die the next mile.
Do you know what I mean? Can you relate?
I speak with clients and others living with chronic illness who describe feeling isolated because of what they can’t do. They struggle not to withdraw because of it. They’re determined to keep working — or get back to work. They believe it helps them feel normal in an abnormal body. But they get stuck worrying and wondering. Worst of all, no one around them gets it!
Is this your experience?
Leslie says
Rosalind, I feel like I use the phrase “square peg, round hole” all the time to describe my life to friends, family, etc. I think it is a very sad, but fitting way to describe the impact that chronic illness has on life generally. It’s incredibly frustrating to want to live a life that your body limits you from doing.
Vanessa D. says
Yes, that’s my experience! Why do I bother to try to fit in!!? “The government is making it easy with all the disability laws,” I think. “I should go back to work, (in the mainstream 9-5 workplace),” I think. I realize that with my energy levels and physical reactions to the weather, that it is and would be difficult. Why am I trying to live a “normal” life? To LOOK good? Remember Billy Crystal’s character on Saturday Night Live? “Dahling, its better to look good than feel good.”
At my last job, at a social service agency for people with disabilities, we used to laugh about the inconsistency of that statement, looking good, rather then feeling good. How does one look good, if one does not feel good due to chronic illness? How do you pull it all together for the hours you are working. It takes valuable energy to pull it all together for me. Do I really see a payoff in putting my energy into looking good for the job, especially at a job where I cannot be open and honest about my chronic illness?
Rosalind Joffe aka cicoach.com says
Leslie – Here’s a “coaching’ question for you: Can you imagine a square peg fitting in a round hole that feels good rather than a mismatch? It’s the frame we give this that helps us see beyond the sadness to something else.
Vanessa – Great question – why bother to fit in? Why bother to work in a job? Only you can answer that question because if it takes a lot of your energy to work, you need a clear reason. For some people it’s the money, for some it’s having someplace to show up every day — maybe it’s the socialization you get or the good energy from doing something well. Whatever it is, you’ve got to figure that out and have that as the place you can hold onto when you feel lousy,isolated or like a square peg.
LAM says
I’ve experienced much of what you described — diagnosed in my late 20s with scleroderma, at a time when the treatment options were non-existent, and when I had just started my career as a lawyer. Rather than a square peg, though, the image that always comes to mind is being “off track,” not only because I struggle with the illness, but because I don’t have a husband or children, and my parents are deceased. As one who has always hated being dependent in any way, one of the biggest challenges has been to learn to ask for (and accept) help. Add to that the uncertainties of the workplace (and my absolute need to continue working, for financial and sanity reasons), and you can probably get a sense of the mental forest I’ve made myself wander through on a daily basis. Fortunately, I have a fantastic therapist who excels at refocusing my attention on all the things I can do. Especially at this time of year, it’s crucial to recite the abundant blessings in my life. And if that doesn’t work, I re-read “Pronoia” just to remind myself of how many things conspire to make me happy, without my even knowing it. Yeah, that’s Pollyanna-ish, but with chronic illness showing up at my front door like a giant hairy monster, I need a powerful shield to block him. Your website and blog are pieces of my shield, and I thank you. Feel well!
Leslie says
Rosalind, I do think you are right on the framing issue. And there certainly are times when my body does weird things that I laugh to myself, shake my head, and say “square peg, round hole.” In my experience, though, it is mostly in relation to negative experiences that I use the phrase. I think you’re right, though, and it would be good for all of us to try and see the positive situations in which such a phrase is fitting.
Christina Gombar says
Wierdly, I feel like I’m ahead of the game, in terms of coping with age-related illnesses, and have a lot of coping advice to offer my previously “well” friends.
At almost 50, my friends are coming down with — Type II diabetes from being under-exercising, over-eating workoholics, being hit with a bad case of pre-menopause, back, joint deterioration, etc. I’vbe been self-treating with good lifestyle and holistic things, as well as traditional medicine — I’m able to help people manage their suddenly bewildering lack of health.
I still do have that moment — this past weekend someone commented on how I had “decided not to have children” — when in fact that choice was taken away from me by my health and financial situation. Then I had to explain a bit to him — but he’d known me in another professional context, without my having explained before the parameters of my life. I like to let them know me in another context — then spring the info on them on an “as needed basis.” I’ve written alot about my condition, so I just said — read my website.
Rosalind Joffe aka cicoach.com says
So true, Christina. I wrote this with a client in mind who is in her 30’s. I keenly remember how hard it was to be young and alone with this stuff. I’m 57 and almost everyone I know has had some health problem or other and I no longer feel “alone” in my experience. But the difference still is that most have had an acute situation that improves whereas with a CI, it lingers and flares and doesn’t go away. The good news is that at least I am among a cohort who can relate to feeling intensely tired, pain or the fear. But when you’re young and trying to create and sustain personal relationships and a career, living with a CI is a very isolating experience.
Christina Gombar says
I agree – being young with this was the absolute worst. But now many friends can say, “Now I get what you were going through.”
Recently, a friend, age 62 came down with Lyme disease. For the past three months, despite taking antibiotics, he barely has enough energy to go into work. He apologizes for not being able to socialize on the weekends. Previously, he had been active, running, gardening, boating, every minute he wasn’t at work. I said, No worries — that’s how I’ve been for the past twenty years!