Strengthen Your Relationship with Your Body With These Six Blogs

What does it mean to have a strong relationship to your body?

Does it mean you need to be body positive? What about body neutrality? Or body trust? What do all these different terms mean? Do you have to embody all of them to have a strong relationship between yourself and your body? Where can you even start?

Having a strong relationship to your body helps your health holistically. It helps you tune into your physical and your emotional needs, and tend to them consciously and intentionally. But getting there isn’t an easy journey and it can be hard to know where to start. 

These six blogs are our starting point for you if you’re looking to strengthen your relationship to your body. 

They’re all about reflecting on your relationship to your body, learning to adjust your perspective and expectations, and practices you can take with you as you learn to engage with your body's needs and cues moving forward. Check them out below:

What Does it Mean to Engage in Self Care When You’re Chronically Ill

Your practice doesn’t have to be perfect all of the time. No one is keeping score at how well you’re taking care of yourself or what you’re falling behind on.

Determine for yourself what you can maintain, and try your best to maintain it–and trust yourself to know when you need to just relax.

Keep reading. 

3 Ways to Build Trust with Your Body

You might not even realize the messages that you’ve taken in about bodies throughout your life. There may be cultural messages that you disagree with on an intellectual level but have a hard time disconnecting from for yourself. You’re not alone. It’s hard to disengage from the constant messaging that your body is not good enough and that you can’t trust what it’s telling you.

When you don’t trust your body, you might have a harder time picking up on body cues like hunger or thirst. You might ignore your body’s needs, like needing to take a break, because you feel you should push through.

Keep reading. 

Separating Healing from Healthism

Your health is not insignificant–when you are sick or injured or unwell in any way you deserve care and medicine and support. The rejection of healthism isn’t a rejection of taking care of yourself, but shifting the motivations behind it.

Instead of caring for yourself because you want to be healthy so you can deserve love and care and support, can you care for yourself because you are alive and deserve it? Can you shift your habits of caring for yourself so they come from a place of love and joy, rather than guilt and shame?

Keep reading. 

Learning How to Connect Emotions & Body Sensations

Do you know how emotions feel in your body?

Emotions aren’t only felt in the mind. Our bodies react to our environments just like our brains do, and it can be helpful to connect emotions with body sensations so we can better understand what’s going on within us.

Keep reading. 

Can I have a Healthy Relationship with my Body Without Loving it?

While it would be wonderful to get to a point where your relationship with your body is a loving one, it’s possible to have an emotionally healthy relationship, even a caring relationship, without love. Think of human social relationships–you might not love your coworker or your neighbor or your barista, but you’re likely able to at least provide them the respect and dignity they deserve, and possibly even have a positive, friendly relationship with them. You care about not being rude to them, you don’t think they are unreasonable for having boundaries, and you probably don’t think they’re shameful for asking for what they need!  

Keep reading.

Gentle Movement tips for a Healthier Relationship with Exercise

Gentle movement or moving our bodies in some way that feels good is important for our health–not for the reasons we often hear about in intense fitness environments, where fitness is more of a sport focused on pushing your body to extremes–but because our body and our brain feel better when we find ways to incorporate movement into our routines. Keep the purpose of feeling good at the center of your search for a gentle movement routine: if it starts to feel like drudergy or punishment, it’s time to find something new. 

Keep reading. 

If you’re looking for support as you heal your relationship to your body, therapy can be a great place to start. Contact us today and our expert clinicians can help. 

What Does it Mean to Engage in Self Care When You’re Chronically Ill?

What does it mean to engage in self care when you’re chronically ill?

In general, self-care is the habits or practices you engage in in order to meet your emotional, physical and social needs. Unlike self soothing, which is concerned with providing comfort in the moment, self care is typically some sort of proactive care that has a noticeable effect on your life. It’s basically making sure you meet what you’ve determined to be the essentials for living a fulfilling, happy and healthy life. Some simple examples of self care are: 

• Establishing healthy sleeping habits

• Finding meals that are both enjoyable to eat and provide you with nutrients you need

• Carrying a water bottle around to make sure you stay hydrated

• Putting your prescriptions on auto-refill, or having them delivered to your house if that’s an option

• Taking a walk around your neighborhood

While self soothing often focuses on things that make you feel good in the moment–taking a long shower, a mindfulness exercise, watching a favorite movie, etc–self care is more about the long term maintenance of your wellbeing. Which means it's not always (or ever) a breezy, effortless thing. It can mean using up a lot of energy, both physical and mental, which is something chronically ill people don’t usually have in excess. 

So how can you realistically engage in self care when you’re also managing a chronic illness?

First, as we’ve said before, stop all or nothing thinking:

Life is rarely all or nothing. 50% is pretty much always better than 0%.

Getting started is often the hardest part, especially when the task itself is so massive it feels like even if you start you’ll never finish.  When you tell yourself “I don’t have to finish the dishes, I just have to start them” you’re easing that pressure. Chances are? You’ll realize doing the dishes isn’t actually that bad and you’ll just finish them. And if not? Then some of your dishes are clean now when they weren’t before! 

Your practice doesn’t have to be perfect all of the time. No one is keeping score at how well you’re taking care of yourself or what you’re falling behind on. 

Determine for yourself what you can maintain, and try your best to maintain it–and trust yourself to know when you need to just relax. 

Self care practice: keeping yourself nourished.

When you look up self care, so much advice is centered around food. And food is important! It keeps us alive! But the advice you often stumble upon when looking to take better care of yourself is to cook for yourself more. Cooking is a great way to practice taking care of yourself but it’s not always a realistic solution. Maybe you only have the energy to cook once a week. Or your live with too much pain to stand in a kitchen for a long time, so cooking is extremely rare. Maybe you’re so busy with different doctors appointments that you don’t have much time for grocery shopping or meal planning. 

Chronically ill approach: find your cheats. 

What are easy, filling foods you can throw together when you don’t have more than 10 minutes of kitchen energy in you? Make a list of things like this and use the components as the starting point for your regular shopping list. For example: a bag of frozen fruit & veggies, some yogurt, and juice can be quickly thrown together for a protein rich smoothie that takes little time and effort including prep and clean up. Consider your regular schedule and think of when you tend to have the most energy/feel the best. Is there a predictable time in your week where you could make time to cook? When you do, try to cook enough to yield leftovers so you can have another filling, low energy meal later in the week. 

Self care practice: move your body every day.

Physical wellness impacts our mental wellness and our overall holistic health, so it’s good to find ways to tend to it! While exercise is often a primary example of self-care, that can be tricky to navigate for chronically ill people. What if you’re in too much pain? What if your illness inhibits exercise? 

Chronically ill approach: but listen to it first.

At the root of the advice to move your body each day is the idea that your body’s needs deserve to be recognized and prioritized with regularity. This is actually very important for chronically ill people, even if it doesn’t show up in practice as exercise. Instead, it can be waking up and doing a body scan, assessing how you’re feeling, what your symptoms are–if any sort of gentle movement or stretching would be helpful or if other needs (taking medication, getting hydrated and fed, etc.) need to be taken care of first. And if you have the physical wellness to engage in exercise, remember it doesn’t have to be the aggressive, strenuous type of exercise we often associate with gyms and workout culture. It can be taking a long walk around your neighborhood, volunteering at a community garden, tending to your own house or yard, playing with a nibling, playing with a pet, etc.  

Self care practice: develop routines. 

Having dependable routines can be great! You can learn to prioritize your time and make room for everything you need to do and practice regular rest. But routines themselves depend on you having the same energy and interests all of the time–which is not really true for anyone, but fluctuating and unpredictable health or energy is a major obstacle in life with chronic illness. 

Chronically ill approach: but prioritize your needs over your expectations. 

If you have it in your routine to cook over the weekends because you usually have more time and energy to take care of yourself, but you suddenly get a flare up over the weekend, remember it’s more important to take care of yourself and what you need right now than to live up to the routine expectations you’ve set for yourself. If you push yourself to maintain routines through poor health, you only run the risk of feeling worse for longer. Instead, know when you need to show yourself some grace and let go of your to do list in favor of taking care of the needs pressing for your attention. 

Learning that you have a chronic illness diagnosis is often a life-changing experience. Chronic illness tends to impact every aspect of life, from work to leisure time to money to relationships. Remember, chronic illness is not your fault. If you would like more support in coping with chronic illness, our therapists at Hope+Wellness can help.

7 Blogs to Read if You’re Dealing with Chronic Illness

Living with chronic illness impacts your whole life. 

From your relationships, to your work life, to your self-image, chronic illness finds a way to influence everything. Many of us prefer to think that chronic illness is something we’ll never have to deal with, so it can seem jarring or even frightening to consider what our lives would be like if we dealt with chronic illness.

Part of the fear that comes from imagining life with chronic illness is that we live in a world that was not designed for disabled or chronically ill people to move through. We understand, on some level, how difficult it is to navigate a world that is at best indifferent to you and at worst hostile to your participation. 

When we understand more about the experience of folks living with chronic illness, it's easier to be empathetic and to extend compassion to others and to yourself. Studies show that six out of every ten adults in the United States are living with a chronic illness, so chronic illness is definitely not as rare as we might like to think. 

Especially in the wake of a mass disabling event like the Covid-19 pandemic, it’s important to consider what the world is like as a chronically ill person and what we can all do to make things a little easier on folks who do live with a chronic illness. 

To help make a difficult experience a little easier, we’ve gathered 7 of our blog posts related to living your best life with a chronic illness: 

The majority of people in the United States will experience chronic illness at some point in their lives. 

There’s no doubt about it - living with a chronic illness has an impact on your mental health because our mental and physical health is interconnected. Just because you don’t have to worry about chronic illness right now doesn’t mean that will always be the case.

It’s critical to understand the ways that chronic illness can impact mental health because the odds are that you will experience chronic illness at some point in your life, whether for yourself or through someone you love.

Read 5 Ways Chronic Illness can Affect Your Mental Health

Do you have a loved one who deals with chronic pain?

It’s not always easy to know how to show up for someone when they’re going through something serious or life-changing, like dealing with chronic illness or pain. It’s also difficult for folks who don’t live with chronic illness or chronic pain to really understand all the different ways that it impacts everyday life. 

Learning ways to be more conscientious about making plans and prioritizing accommodations for your chronically ill friends can make them feel safe and cared for, which is ideally how we want our friends to feel in our presence, right? 

Read How to Be There for A Friend with Chronic Pain

When you can have reasonable expectations for yourself & your limits, you can start to develop compassion for those limits. 

It can be frustrating as a chronically ill person to feel like your limits change from day to day. Your energy levels change, your symptoms shift, and it can be hard to find a routine that you can sustain for more than a few days. At times it can even feel like you’re working against your own body, which can feel heartbreaking and confusing. 

It’s important to learn how to be compassionate with yourself when you’re chronically ill. There are already enough things to deal with when you’re in pain or symptomatic without being hard on yourself on top of it. 

Read Developing Self Compassion While Living with Chronic Illness

Are you parenting a child with chronic pain?

Watching your child suffer is devastating as a parent. You might feel helpless when your child is in pain or stuck, like you don’t know where to turn for help. It’s also logistically difficult to parent a child with complicated medical needs, and parents of chronically ill children often feel isolated or burnt out. 

Finding ways to support both children with chronic pain and their parents as they navigate this complicated experience can help improve quality of life, even in the face of pain. 

Read 3 Tips for Parenting a Child with Chronic Pain

Since chronic illness is longer term than acute illness, it tends to ripple out and affect even more of people’s everyday lives, including their relationships. 

Unfortunately, the reality for many chronically ill people is that their relationships change after their diagnosis. There are lots of reasons why this happens, but it often feels extremely personal and painful. 

Many people don’t realize how isolating and exhausting chronic illness is, and since it’s a long-term condition, the impacts on relationships can be long-lasting. Practicing speaking up for your needs, setting boundaries, and practicing coping with grief can all help you navigate changing relationships in the aftermath of your chronic illness diagnosis. 

Read How to Cope With Losing Relationships as a Result of Your Chronic Illness

One thing that might surprise folks about living with a chronic illness is the amount of grief there is to navigate. 

Chronic illness has a way of changing everything about your life, from the way you relax to your job to your relationships. Major changes and upheaval in your life often lead to grief, and learning how to cope with that grief can make it easier to navigate. 

The grief that comes up in response to chronic illness can come from your changing relationships, the dream of what could have been if you hadn’t gotten sick, and even from the way the world treats folks with chronic illness. Learning how to move through the world in this new way takes time and lots of self compassion, and you’re not alone for feeling this way. 

Read Understanding Grief and Chronic Illness

If you suffer from chronic pain, the idea of body positivity might feel like asking a lot. 

It can be hard to feel positively about a body that is letting you down or causing you pain. Learning how to love your body and feel positively about it isn’t the only way you can have a healthy relationship with it, though.

You might need to practice readjusting your expectations and understanding your new limits. Remember that you and your body are worthy of respect and care, no matter what else is going on.  

Read Can I Have a Healthy Relationship with My Body Without Loving It?

If you would like more support in coping with chronic illness or dealing with body changes, our therapists at Hope+Wellness can help. Reach out today to make an appointment! 

Understanding Grief and Chronic Illness

One thing that might surprise folks about living with a chronic illness is the amount of grief there is to navigate. 

In addition to having to deal with the physical reality of your illness, juggling medical appointments, and trying to find a way to make ends meet, chronic illness involves a lot of loss. Unlike a one-time event that leads to grief, chronic illness is a series of losses, over and over and over. The losses that come with a chronic illness or disorder are not a one time thing, which can make it even harder to cope with. 

Thousands of people in the US are newly dealing with chronic illness as a result of Long-COVID. It’s more important than ever to understand the reality of living as a chronically ill person, what that can look like, and how to cope with the emotions that come with diagnosis.

Why does chronic illness cause grief? 

The reason chronic illness brings up so much grief is because it completely changes the way you can live your life. Grief can come up in reaction to any number of situations in life, like moving, changes in finances, and relationship shifts. Sometimes dealing with chronic illness means dealing with all of those things at the same time. So many changes all at once is devastating and can make you question your sense of self. 

Change is often a huge source of grief, especially when the change is involuntary and not a choice you made. It’s always tempting to imagine the life you didn’t lead, or daydream what would have happened if you made a different choice, if you got that job, if you stayed in that relationship. The what-ifs in life are always going to be tinged with some grief, because there’s no way for us to have it all. When you’re chronically ill, those what-ifs might come up even more because of the changes that come with a serious illness.

In addition to the grief of losing what could have been if things were different, the number of changes that chronic illness often requires can bring up grief. 

When you are diagnosed with a chronic illness, it usually comes with major changes in what you can and can’t do. Some changes that often come up for chronically ill people include: 

• Changes in what you can or can’t eat

• Coping with medication side effects

• Shifts in your energy levels

• Arranging, getting to, and paying for endless doctor appointments

• Dealing with constant physical discomfort or pain

• Being treated differently

• Losing friends and relationships

• Losing mobility and the freedom that comes with it

• Worrying about money or insurance or both

• Finding accessible housing

• Shifts in physical appearance

It’s very normal to deal with grief as a chronically ill person. If you have been diagnosed with a chronic illness or are dealing with chronic health issues, here are 5 ways to cope:

Allow yourself to feel your feelings

It can be hard to find time when you’re dealing with a chronic illness between the demands of day to day life and the chaos of constant medical issues, appointments, and the like. You might feel tempted to push down the feelings that come up in response to your diagnosis because you don’t feel like you have the time to feel anything. 

Unfortunately, feelings need to be felt, and there are often lots of feelings that come up in response to chronic illness. Some of the emotions you’re dealing with might be: 

• Frustration

• Rage

• Sadness

• Confusion

• Fear

• Shame

• Guilt

• Relief 

• Despair

These feelings can be tough to deal with, but part of recovering from grief is allowing yourself to feel these intense feelings. Grief in itself is intense, and the emotions that are often underneath grief can be intense as well. Try to be as compassionate with yourself as possible while you let yourself feel your emotions. 

Emotions are normal. Feeling them is normal, even when it feels horrible. It might help to have some coping skills ready to go when you allow yourself to tune in with those intense feelings, like making sure you have someone you can call on for support or a few grounding exercises written out on notecards that you can follow when you’re getting overwhelmed. 

Work toward acceptance 

Acceptance of a chronic illness might sound like agreeing to be miserable forever, but that’s not actually what it has to mean. The idea behind acceptance is that it causes a lot of pain and distress to be struggling against reality. Accepting the idea that your illness is long term (or serious, or causing your discomfort, or whatever it is that you’re struggling with) might feel like giving up, but it can be an important step for you to be able to move forward. 

It’s okay to acknowledge that you’re feeling what you’re feeling. You don’t have to be okay with what’s happening or happy or anything like that. Sometimes acceptance means admitting “I’m really freaking mad about this,” or “I don't think I can ever accept this.” Giving yourself permission to admit what’s really going on can bring a sense of relief. 

It might also help to accept that health is more out of our control than we like to think.

Remember that no matter what, no one stays the same forever. We all have to deal with our bodies changing at some point, and the older we get, the more things tend to go wrong. Learning at a young age that you are not your body and that you can lead a happy, meaningful life no matter what happens to you is an incredibly painful but invaluable lesson.

Seek out others who are chronically ill

One of the hardest things about adjusting to life as a chronically ill person is the way your relationships change. It can be hard to keep up with people in the way you used to. You might not have the energy for the things you used to do with your friends. You might feel like you’re no fun to hang out with anymore, but that’s not the truth! 

Chronically ill and disabled people exist and have always existed, and they have found ways of building community. As messed up as the internet can be, the way modern technology allows people to connect to each other from their own homes has shifted the way that chronically ill and disabled people can build community. There are many places on the internet where you can find groups of chronically ill people. Try searching for “Spoonie” groups or pages to start! 

This isn’t to say that you need to stay home at all times if you’re chronically ill. Spending time with other chronically ill or disabled people can help you find places in your area that are accessible and give everyone a chance to feel understood and valued. 

Find a creative outlet for your feelings 

When it comes to feeling your feelings, it can help to have a creative outlet. Intense emotions can be tricky to work through, but having a way to let the emotion out can help. Some people find a lot of comfort in using creativity to express their feelings. 

Creativity can be whatever feels good for you. Some people like to channel their feelings, like rage, fear, sadness, into making art or writing in a journal. 

Others like to express themselves through movement. Moving your body might look and feel different after being diagnosed with a chronic illness, and you might need to explore a few things to find what works for you and what feels good to you physically and mentally. Allowing yourself to play can remind you that you deserve to feel joy and to experience play, just like everyone else. 

Find ways to assert your agency 

Having a chronic illness means a slow steady loss of control over your body. While the control that we have over our bodies is not as strong as many would like to believe, it’s still unbelievably painful to realize that you can’t do much of anything to make yourself feel better physically. 

Try to find other ways to assert your agency like gardening, making art, or making your space really cozy and comfortable. Even something as simple as choosing a new book to read or a show to watch can remind you that while some things will always be out of your control, there are choices that you get to make. 

Learning that you have a chronic illness diagnosis is often a life-changing experience. Chronic illness tends to impact every aspect of life, from work to leisure time to money to relationships. Remember, chronic illness is not your fault. If you would like more support in coping with chronic illness, our therapists at Hope+Wellness can help.

Can I Have a Healthy Relationship with My Body Without Loving It?

If you suffer from chronic pain, the idea of body positivity might feel like asking a lot. 

It can be hard to love something that causes you severe amounts of physical pain, not to mention the emotional pain that can come with that sort of prolonged discomfort and distress. So if you’re someone who manages chronic pain, and you find yourself rolling your eyes a bit at the idea of body positivity–I get it! It’s okay and you’re definitely not alone. 

But living with chronic pain doesn’t mean you don’t deserve an emotionally healthy relationship with your body, even if that can’t be one filled with love. While it would be wonderful to get to a point where your relationship with your body is a loving one, it’s possible to have an emotionally healthy relationship, even a caring relationship, without love. Think of human social relationships–you might not love your coworker or your neighbor or your barista, but you’re likely able to at least provide them the respect and dignity they deserve, and possibly even have a positive, friendly relationship with them. You care about not being rude to them, you don’t think they are unreasonable for having boundaries, and you probably don’t think they’re shameful for asking for what they need!  

The same can be true of your body. 

The first step to getting to that emotionally healthy relationship with your body is to let go of unrealistic expectations. 

Just like with your other relationships, unfair expectations just set everyone involved up for hurt and disappointment. When you expect your friends to read your mind, you’re putting the burden of a role they’re not equipped to manage on their shoulders, and it can never end in positive feelings. The same is true of your body. When you expect your body to be able to do things like: 

• Operate at 100% every day 

• Persist through prolonged exertion or labor without breaks 

• Function without proper nourishment 

…You’re putting unrealistic expectations onto your body. No one’s body can really manage those things! And if you experience chronic pain or chronic illness of some kind, your limits are going to feel even more rigid. But it’s important for you to figure out what it is your body can reasonably handle on a given day so you can make sure you’re not asking too much of it. 

Take stock of your limits, of what different things cost you in terms of energy, pain, emotional regulation, etc. 

When you take time to notice the effect different activities or situations have on you, your body, the severity of your symptoms, etc., you’re able to better respond to those effects, preemptively plan for how you will manage an increase of symptoms, or set limits on those things. When making plans, remember to keep those limits and boundaries in mind and to be respectful of your relationship with your body. If you push it past those limits, the lack of care you show to your body’s needs will show up in that relationship through worsening pain, increased symptoms, etc. 

Remember healthy relationships are reciprocal

It’s okay if there’s a lack of love between you and your body sometimes. Not every relationship needs constant love and affection to be healthy. They do however need respect and reciprocity–which means however you treat your body is how you can expect your body to treat you.Instead of punishing your body for its needs and limits, try to respect them. Because when you punish your body, it will only turn that punishment back on you for neglecting its needs, whether that’s through increased pain or flare up of symptoms, or getting sick in some other fashion. When you notice your body’s cues and tend to them, you’re showing your body respect and care. This in turn gives you a cared for place to live and exist. 

If you’re looking for support as you heal your relationship to your body, therapy can be a great place to start. Contact us today and our expert clinicians can help. 

How to Be There for A Friend with Chronic Pain

Do you have a loved one who deals with chronic pain?

If you don’t experience chronic pain, it can be hard to understand just how much it can impact someone’s life. While for most people, pain is unusual, a sign that something needs to be tended to immediately, for folks who manage chronic pain, it is a constant state. 

The baseline, rather than comfortable or content, is typically still some underlying degree of pain, even when on a pain management routine of some sort. Chronic pain impacts the sufferer from the moment they wake up until the time they go to sleep (and often in between as well, as chronic pain commonly impacts sleep!) so it can be hard to know how to help! 

If you’re looking for ways to support a loved one with chronic pain, here are 6 ways to be there for them:

Consider obstacles before proposing plans

Even something as simple as going for a walk can be difficult for someone with chronic pain. That doesn’t mean it’s impossible for them, but when you’re planning outings that you want your friend with chronic pain to take part in, try to consider what problems it may bring up for them, and what accommodations can be made so that friend can still come and have a good time. Again, if you’re planning something like a hike or a walk, it could be as simple as making sure to pick a path with benches along it so there are places to rest along the trail without having to sit on the ground (which can be uncomfortable, embarrassing, or even impossible depending on the pain your friend experiences). 

Don’t leave them out of the planning

Even if you’ve considered the obstacles, you’re not the one with the chronic pain, so you’re not the expert on whether things have been taken care of! Make sure you let your friend know what you’ve thought of, but also ask them to please let you know if there’s something else they are concerned about so that you can make accommodations for them. For the above example it could be as simple as saying, “Hey, I’d love for you to come hiking with me. I found a trail with lots of benches so we can stop as often as we need to. Is there anything else I didn’t consider?” 

Don’t make them ask to use the accommodations: 

If you know something is an issue for your friend, try to offer the accommodations without waiting for them to ask for it. It can be vulnerable and even feel embarrassing to ask for accommodations others don’t need–especially if you’re in a large group–so they push through pain or discomfort rather than call attention to the fact that they need help. Using the hiking example, you can offer to take a break before your friend asks for one. It’s as simple as saying, “Hey let’s stop at the bench up there for a water break!” You don’t have to call attention to their discomfort, and you can show them you’re actively thinking about them & their needs. 

Understand there aren’t always accommodations that work: 

Your friend with chronic pain might not always be able to find a way to make your plans work. Whether it’s because they’re having a bad flare up, making the usual accommodations useless, or because there just isn’t a way for them to mitigate the pain they’d be experiencing if they participated, there just isn’t always a way to make it work. It’s not a personal judgment if they say they can’t come, and while you might feel tempted to over apologize, that might actually make them feel worse–then they have to comfort you because their pain prevents them from participating. Instead, let them know you’ll miss them and that you do something with them soon. 

Offer help if you can: 

Not everyone has the energy or the time to take on some extra responsibility for their loved ones, but if you’re able to, offering to pick up the slack for your friend every now and then can be a wonderful way to support them. Living with chronic pain can make it difficult to stay on top of things like dishes or laundry or grocery shopping–basic maintenance things. Because often the pain is so severe it is difficult to function or focus on anything else. Severe pain also makes sleep difficult, exacerbating the cycle. If you have some spare time in your week every now and then, check in with your friend, ask if there’s anything you can help them out with. If they’ve been complaining of their pain more and more frequently, let them know you’ve noticed and ask if there’s anything you can do to lighten the load! 

Believe what they tell you, not what you see:

Folks who have been living with chronic pain for years may not look like they are in pain from the outside. When there’s no break from the pain, it becomes a new normal that they have had to adjust to–however that doesn’t mean they aren’t in pain. If your friend has chronic headaches, but looks “normal” when they’re in pain, that doesn’t mean they are faking. The way they look “normally” is what they look like when they’re in pain, because pain is normal for them.

Do you know someone living with chronic pain who needs support? Reach out today to get in touch with one of our clinicians! 

How to Cope With Losing Relationships as a Result of Your Chronic Illness

Many people don’t understand what it’s like to be seriously ill. People often also don’t know what to do when someone is sick. If you’ve ever dealt with a loss in your life you might be familiar with this. Some people don’t know what to say or do, so instead of saying the ‘wrong’ thing, they disappear until the crisis is over. It’s not a nice thing to do, certainly, but it is a human reaction to discomfort. Unfortunately, for folks living with chronic illness, this experience is all too familiar. With chronic illness however, there is no end in sight, and because of that some relationships just don’t survive. 

What is chronic illness in the first place? 

According to the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC), “Chronic diseases are defined broadly as conditions that last 1 year or more and require ongoing medical attention or limit activities of daily living or both. Chronic diseases such as heart disease, cancer, and diabetes are the leading causes of death and disability in the United States.”

What’s important to remember is that this is NOT your fault. Your illness doesn’t make you any less worthy of friendship and support in your life. A chronic illness diagnosis can bring up a lot of different feelings at once: worry, shame, relief, fear, exhaustion, and confusion are just a few. It’s hard enough to wrap your head around your diagnosis and how that will change your life without blaming yourself for your illness. 

The sad truth is, most people don’t know what it’s like to live with a chronic illness. Even though it shouldn’t fall on the ill person to explain things, you may find yourself going over the details over your illness repeatedly to clear up the confusion. That alone can be exhausting. Some people also don’t understand how isolating illness can be. Even though it’s not okay to treat people differently after their diagnosis, it’s a common response. However, there are ways to deal with changing relationships as a result of your chronic illness. 

Set boundaries

Boundaries are basically when you tell people what you expect from them. When you talk to someone about your illness and their response to it, go into the conversation with a few boundaries in mind. Let them know what you expect of them in this situation since as we mentioned above, most people have no idea what to do when someone is seriously ill. You can make it clear that you expect them to visit you regularly, that you’d like regular time to spend together, that you are available or unavailable to talk about your illness and anything else that will help you feel supported. Sometimes people just need direction and they can adjust their behavior accordingly. 

Speak up

When someone hurts you, tell them. Most people don’t understand how their actions look or feel to others. Maybe your friend didn’t know what to say, so instead of saying the wrong thing, they figured they’d get out of your way until they knew. If this (or something like it) happens in your life, call it out! Sometimes being reminded of the way our actions impact others can be enough of a wake-up call to act differently. If you bring up your concerns and feelings

Write them a letter

Even if you never send it, it can be really cathartic to write a letter to someone who has hurt you. You can process your feelings, go over what you’d like to say, and set the record straight to the best of your ability. You can send it or not, but sometimes just the act of writing down your feelings can be eye-opening. 

Learn about grief

Grief isn’t just for death. You can grieve any type of loss - including the loss of the life you had before your diagnosis. When you lose friendships as a result of your illness, you also experience grief. Grief is universal - at some point, everyone will feel it. Do some reading about grief to familiarize yourself with the grieving process so you know what to expect. Remember to be gentle with yourself and that there’s no wrong way to grieve. 

A chronic illness diagnosis can be totally life changing, and not just from a medical perspective. Since chronic illness is longer term than acute illness, it tends to ripple out and effect even more of people’s everyday lives, including their relationships. If you find your relationships changing as a result of your chronic illness, remember to be gentle with yourself - none of this is your fault. If you need more support in coping with these changing relationships, our therapists at Hope+Wellness can help.  

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therapist in falls church, mclean, tysons corner, merrifield, arlington and vienna, va

Hope+Wellness is a psychotherapy practice serving the Falls Church, McLean, Great Falls, Vienna, Arlington, Alexandria, and the greater Washington DC region. We provide compassionatecare to children, teens, and adults with stress, anxiety, and depression. Our practice is in-network with BCBS and provides Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), mindfulness and acceptance based therapies, and other top, premier evidence-based treatments. Call, email, or schedule an appointment with us online today. We’re happy to help!