Mental Health and Chronic Illness
As we continue to navigate this pandemic world, more and more people are living with and being diagnosed with chronic illness. While there are a number of illnesses that can be described as chronic, for our purposes, we’re taking a broad approach and including any condition lasting one year or more, requires ongoing medical treatment and/or limits activities of daily life. At this point you may be double checking your URL, you come here for mental health and relationship blogs, not medical blogs and, well, we’re getting into this because there’s a huge Venn-diagram overlap between chronic illness and mental health challenges.
People dealing with chronic illness are more than 2x as likely as their physically healthy counterparts to also suffer from anxiety and depression. 1 in 5 may also develop Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Interestingly, the relationship, especially between depression and anxiety and chronic illness also exists in the inverse with those suffering from depression and anxiety more likely to also develop chronic illnesses. And based on our previous discussions around transition and mental health challenges, it makes sense. It’s a major transition in your life to be diagnosed with a chronic health issue and that can touch every part of your life. Additionally, the path to diagnosis has the potential to be filled with a lot of testing and fear and potentially being unheard by providers and passed around to different providers who may or may not have answers and that can absolutely impact the development of these symptoms. Below, we’ll get into three major components of how chronic illness can lead to mental health challenges.
First, you may be shifting from a state of predictability to a state of unpredictability. Brains LOVE consistency, predictability, and structure. For many chronic illnesses there are good days and there are bad days and there’s not a lot of cues to tell you ahead of time if it’s going to be a good health day or a bad health day. This requires people to have to drastically increase their ability to be flexible with themselves and to create an environment that also supports flexibility. This can be incredibly challenging. We largely do not live in a society that supports flexibility and it requires significant self-advocacy skills on the part of the person navigating chronic illness to create this while ALSO navigating the newness and unpredictability of what their chronic illness may or may not allow them to do.
This leads me to my second point. Your level of functioning has likely changed. I cannot count how many people have expressed frustration when trying to behave in a way that would previously have been simple that has now become difficult. There is an entire process of mourning of former functioning that one has to go through. This is not dissimilar to grief that comes after the loss of a person. Your entire life is different now and you have to figure out how to say goodbye to a life that you might have really loved and invite a new life that you did not choose.
Finally, dealing with chronic illness can absolutely lead to significant feelings of isolation. Especially during this time when we are still in a global pandemic, those who have chronic illness may (likely) fall under the immunocompromised umbrella and cannot take the same risks as their physically healthy counterparts. This can lead to those with chronic illness being left out of event and experiences and being cutoff from friends and loved ones. This feeling of isolation wreaks havoc on mental and emotional wellness.
So what can you do if your loved one is dealing with chronic illness? Be supportive. Supportive can mean allowing space for complicated feelings and NOT saying things like “well it could be worse” or “you should be grateful” because they already know and that does not change the fact that what they ARE experiencing is really hard. Include them in your plans and allow space for flexibility if they have to cancel. Agree to taking precautions like masking or testing before an event or moving an event outside if possible to create an environment where they may be able to participate. Check in with them about things outside of their illness. They are more than just their illness and while it’s great to check in on their physical wellbeing, also remember to treat them like your friend/family member.
If you’re struggling with the intersection of physical health and mental health yourself or you’re having a hard time supporting a loved one, click the button below and let’s talk.