How do you deal with all the anger and depression and loss of dreams from chronic illness?

 

 

     Dear Blu,

 

      Hello there!  How are you doing today? How is your pain level? I have been way to busy myself, and plum worn out!

   

     I will answer your question but please know that I am probably not the best person to answer these questions. So, hopefully, others will stop by with answers in between holiday events.

 

     I wish I could say I overcame it all and turned my life around for the better! But the truth is I was not able to do it alone. I have been under the care of a Pain Psychologist from day one. Almost 4 years now. Each time I hit a snag that I cannot move forwards with, I go back to "active" therapy. We do everything from keeping up my Biofeedback practice, cognitive behavior, lessons on the hurdles I will face...  I think you get the idea. I am well adjusted for the most part. Well, I think so anyway. Its just that I am unable to go through the hurdles by myself and I need professional help along the way. I have changed my entire home, my hobbies, habits, through process, unconscious actions, conscious actions.. all of it. Though I do get down to check-ups (mental heath checks) eventually... it is just that when ever something is too much for me I have to go back to active (weekly visits IE every 5 days). This helps me to adapt and transition to each major change in my health.

 

     Like I said, I am probably not the best person to answer this question for you. I am sure there are others who are able to adapt their life better than I am able to. Personally, I just cannot do all of it alone sometimes.

 

*warm hugg*
       dani

Thank u 4 the feedback. Thats the hardest part 4 me truly, doing it alone. If I cld afford therapy believe me Id go 5 days a wk! Id love 2 & has helped in past w/ so many other things. Been dealing w/ CP over 20 yrs last 2 being incapacitating. Longer if u count migraines. Since 2005 its been a steady escalation, last 2 unreal. Last 1 unbearable. Im usually grateful & prayer helps & seeing others unfortunately who have it worse. Its just so hard 2 deal w/it alone. I feel shame 4 how it effects my grown sons. Destroyed my marriage finally. 1son does well w/it but youngest does not at all. I was always the strong one who evrybody else came 2. Seems like when I went down, everybody just said "what a shame, good luck w/that & let me know if u need anything. Gotta run". Thats the hard part. No support grps here 4 it. Its why I come here. I KNOW u understand. I pray if it is not Gods will 2 heal me He will help me keep my family 2gether n show me a new purpose. THANK U! HUGGZ

It is really difficult, to say the least, to accept being in pain all of the time. Personally, I started reading the Bible a lot more after my accident, and that is what helps me get through. I truly believe that I would not be where I am now in regard to my faith if I were not like this. That said, I would love to be better now.

It really is exhausting. I go through thinking that I have accepted it, to knowing that I haven't, all in the span of a few days sometimes. It's back and forth for me. But, God does get me though, and I rely on Him for strength.

Also, the support here helps incredibly, as does support from my family. I don't have a lot of friends, but I have one that is really here for me as much as she can be, and I know that I can always call her if I'm having a bad day/week/weeks.

So, all of that helps me.

Can you talk to your doctor about this pain? Are your pain levels totally out of control? When I have a flare up, I feel so much worse emotionally than I do when I'm at my regular pain levels. I'm just wondering if there is any way that your doc could help you out.

Hugs,

Flower

Dear BluAngel,

It's been 12 years since I was first diagnosed with fibromyalgia and I still don't know how to cope. Honestly, I haven't had a "good day" in over 8 years. As my diagnoses increased ( HCV, Non diabetic poly neuropathy, arthritis, a cyst in my brain, carpal tunnel) my friends decreased. I had a very bright academic future, and should have attained my PhD by now, but that was not to be. I've always won my battles with an iron will; a drop-out at age 12, a childhood victim of sexual abuse, introduced to mild and very heavy drugs by my parents from age 11 on, and in an abusive marriage by my early 20s, I got into counseling after a suicide attempt and turned everything around. I attended university, which it turned out I loved and was very good at. I worked my way through college, single mom, graduated with a double major and honors, then became ill two years after graduation, one year into my graduate studies. With a 15 yr. old and 2 babies, I just couldn't do it and work too. I was very bitter about that for a long time.

So I've been slogging about in a pain-fog for 12 years, denied disability in '07, in the process of applying again, this time with a good doctor and a good lawyer. I have finally realized that my famous iron will has no control over disease. That if it were really about will or desire, I'd have become well long ago. The only thing I can change is how I choose to perceive things. I am in financial ruin because I cannot work, homeless at present, and battling depression (a lifelong plague).

All I can say is, take cheer where it's offered. Mobility has become an enormous problem for me, and while I feel horrible about not being able to take my boys on outings like we used to, and about the struggle to keep food in the house (as much as because I have no car as because of $ problems), my sons will tell me that they don't care, they are happy just to have me as their mom and that's all they need. Could I ask for more wonderful children?? Things like that, or curling up with a good book, a cuddle with my cat, those are the things that count. Perhaps I'll be well enough one day to write my great novel (or two) and in the meantime I write whenever I can, but until then, God has seen fit to make my once very big life quite small. That's my lesson to learn and I'm still learning it.

I guess what really matters is appreciating the journey for whatever it is, instead of trying to make it what it was or mourning the loss of what it was. It would have changed anyway, really, nothing stays the same, and who is to say some other path wouldn't have been even worse than this one?

I've only been a member of the forum for a couple days, but it is already helping. Stay in touch! It's okay to have a bad day, to be angry, because healthy people often don't and can't understand what we are. It is lovely to have a place like this. And housework be darned!

In friendship,

Susi

Hope everyone is doing well!