#howtocopewithchronicillness

“Are you still tired?”  If you are chronically ill you are going to hear this from friends or family.  What they don’t seem to understand is that the fatigue that accompanies illness is not the same exhaustion you feel when you only get 4 hours of sleep.  It is a bone crunching, brain numbing, heart stopping tired that you feel when your body is in a constant fight or flight mode.  Couple that with not being able to sleep more than 2-3 hours at a time because you CANNOT find a position that doesn’t hurt or pain flares that slap you awake in the middle of the night and take you hours to recover from.  So to answer your question, “you’re goddamn right I’m tired!”  

I have 8 how many do you have?

If you have people in your life that are constantly trying to fix you, tell you how you should cope with your pain, and tell you that you are making all the wrong choices to deal with your pain, you have the right to cut them off.   No one has the right to tell you how to cope with your illness, but you.  I have found that people who offer unsolicited advice are people whose own lives are a mess.   They usually have very low self-esteem and feel better when they can find someone whom they deem is worse off.  Don’t let anyone diminish your ability to cope with your illness however you see fit.  So next time try telling them thank you but no thank you.  If they persist tell them to take their kale eating, protein drinking, yoga practicing opinion to themselves and that you are doing just fine.