Soldiering On

This morning I am reflecting on a young woman who clearly has a chronic illness but her diagnosis remains elusive. As with most chronic illnesses, her health is unpredictable from day to day and even hour to hour. She keeps soldiering on. I did that too until I finally got hauled off in an ambulance.

When we refuse to take the time we need to heal, that is a symptom of denial. When we believe that we are indispensable, that is a symptom of denial. When we say, "I'll be fine tomorrow" without any concrete evidence, that is a symptom of denial.

Part of this irrational thinking is that we have to push ourselves so that we won't let down our loved ones or friends or employers. The truth of the matter is that when we soldier on, we aren't giving our best. When we make promises that our health probably won't let us keep, we are letting them down even more. We create unreasonable expectations and then beat ourselves up for not meeting them.

A good way to find your compass in this situation is to pretend that you are healthy and that someone you love has what you have. What would you expect of them? What would you do to help them? What advice would you have for them? Now, do that for yourself.

Life Sentence

People get sick. They get treatment and then they get better. Or people get sick. They get treatment and they die anyway. These are the models of illness we know best. But in chronic illness, people get sick, get treatment, and stay sick. The goals are management and quality of life, not a cure. Get well soon rings pretty hollow when there is no cure in sight. Chronic conditions are expected in old age, but not in the prime of life. We haven’t been given a death sentence. We’ve been given a life sentence and there is no hope for parole.

A life sentence is pretty hard to accept. So we challenge the diagnosis. We repeat tests and run from specialist to specialist, hoping to get a different answer. Insanity, by the way, is doing the same thing over and over while expecting different results. Something curable would be nice. If traditional medicine can’t give us the answers we want, we look for “natural” cures. Maybe, just maybe, that exotic foufou leaf concoction holds the answer, or magnets, or inversion swings, or the latest fad cure diet. Now really, would millions be spent on research if these things really did the trick? You know the answer. Still, we know we’re the exception that proves the rule. We’ll find that elusive cure all by ourselves. There are no magic bullets out there. Call it hope if you wish, but it’s a form of denial. Before you start getting defensive, denial, in the early stages after diagnosis is not all that bad. Denial protects us from harsh realities. Denial gives us time to regroup and make adjustments. Denial makes time for the implications to sink in. Want to live successfully with your illness? Let the denial cushion the blow for a little while. Then use acceptance as the starting point for transforming your life.

When Denial Is a Good Thing

The accusation, “You’re in denial,” hurts when it’s true. The accuser hopes we will be shocked into reality. We don’t hear the accuser’s care and concern for us. No! We hear judgment. Not only are we sick, but we are weak personalities who can’t even face the diagnosis. We need another person to make us face the music. The implication is that denial is a very, very bad thing and that we are very, very bad for being in denial for even the shortest time.

Denial protects us from facing what is too horrible to think about all at once. That’s OK, in fact, it’s a good thing-as long as we don’t stay there forever!