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Do you wonder if people are thinking you’re making up your symptoms? Or that emotional “issues” are making you sicker? If you do, I can assure you — you’re not alone.
My client, I’ll call her P, was worrying about just this and it made it difficult for her to think about much else.
P has scleroderma – which until recently only affected her ability to use her hands at work. It meant that she often couldn’t write and was slow on the computer. But it didn’t get in her way from doing her job.
Then a month ago, she started having trouble walking. As a university Dean, P frequently walks outside to different buildings. Cold aggravates scleroderma symptoms. As it’s getting colder, it’s becoming more difficult for her to navigate the distances.
When she missed several meetings, she told her colleagues that she was having trouble walking. But, for the first time since disclosing her disabling problems with her hands, people are behaving oddly to her. P finds herself wondering if they believe she’s really sick.
Complicating this, P’s husband lost his job about the time that she started having trouble with her feet. One friend at work asked if her symptom might be caused by worry over her financial situation. When P didn’t reply, her friend went on, “Maybe you should see a therapist so your worries don’t take such a toll on your body.”
P doesn’t think she’s worried about her financial situation. Her husband is very employable and she’s confident he’ll find a job. But the comment made her wonder. When another colleague asked why “this” is suddenly a problem when she’d been doing so well for so long — she closed her office door and cried.
It can be hard to figure out: Could I be taking better care of myself? Are my emotions making me sicker? Am I “over reacting” to symptoms?
Lately, the sinusitis I’ve had for 15 years has been worse. Oh . . . and my mother died recently. I’ve lived with CI for 30 years and I still wonder: Why now? Am I making a bigger deal out of this pain than necessary?
When wondering this way becomes a problem, try going to the concrete and specific. Take out a pen and pad and write your answers to these questions:
- What specific symptoms am I experiencing?
- When they’re a problem and preventing me from doing something, is there anything I can do to make it better?
- What do I want others to know about this and what should I say to tell them?
When things get overwhelming, simplify. CI can feel like a huge mountain to climb. It helps to cut it down to molehill size to make it more manageable.
Alice B says
Talk about interesting timing. I just finished reading a chapter in a NYT bestselling book on wellness that says that repressed emotions cause illness. After I got angry (no repressing emotion here), I thought about how stress makes my symptoms worse which made me think that maybe the writer was right after all. Darn it. Sometimes it seems that having a chronic illness can never just be about the bad luck of having a chronic illness. There’s always got to be a “reason” which, unfortunately, can feel a lot like blame. Thanks for this post. I wrote the questions in my planner for the next time I need them to face the on-going challenge of finding mind/body/spirit balance while dealing with my illness.
Rosalind says
Have you ever asked yourself what is stress? Is it always bad? Yes, ci can feel worse with certain catalysts and just living life.