So much about living with chronic illness is difficult. (Like, all of it.) But I personally think that the hardest part is accepting you have a chronic illness. I don’t know if it’s denial or not understanding that most people don’t have a symptom you live with or if it’s something else entirely. I just know that it’s damn hard. To make that easier, I thought I would share my tips for how to accept a chronic illness, as well as what that means.
I am not a medical professional, just a professional patient.
How To Accept a Chronic Illness: What This Means
First of all, “accepting chronic illness” does not mean thinking there is nothing you can do for your body or symptoms.
Not at all.
I believe that I should fight for finding a treatment that works, that I should do everything I can to feel better, and that I should treat my body well.
However …
I believe that living with chronic illness – in my case primarily living with an autoimmune disease, aka my body attacks itself – doesn’t mean that I should not love my body.
And to be clear, I also don’t mean that I should love my autoimmune disease! I can hate my autoimmune disease and hate my chronic illnesses and still love myself.
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Here’s the thing: even if all of my chronic illnesses were miraculously cured tomorrow, I would still be disabled. My illnesses have caused permanent damage to my body, so I will never be fully healthy ever again, even if all of my illnesses were cured tomorrow.
If you have recently (within the last year or so) developed or been diagnosed with a chronic illness, this can be a really overwhelming time. And you might be in the middle of the stages of grieving – which is totally normal!
I am not suggesting that you “get over” all of this and “just” accept life with chronic illness. (Please don’t think that you have to immediately accept it.)
It takes time to adjust! Take the time you need.
And sometimes, the diagnosis comes after the acceptance.
I have been symptomatic since 2001 and I accepted that I was going to be in pain forever years before I was diagnosed with autoimmune arthritis in 2010. For me, the diagnosis was amazing because it meant I had an answer and could be treated.
But I recognize that this isn’t always the case.
Sometimes, people are completely shocked by their diagnosis. If that’s you and you’ve been thrown into the chronic illness life, please take your time and be kind with yourself.
And sometimes people have a long-time chronic illness, and then they develop a new one out of the blue and it’s devastating. (Totally not talking about myself, nope, not at all …)
In these cases, “acceptance” means we have to re-accept our bodies, even if we accepted it before.
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Now that we’ve covered what I do and don’t mean, let’s talk about why accepting chronic illness isn’t the end of the world.
Why Should I Accept My Chronic Illness?
Because everyone deserves to love themselves.
Everyone is worthy of that, including you.
Accept that your body is sick, and accept that just because you are sick does not mean that you are not worthy of love, especially from yourself. You deserve it. You really do.
But even more than that, I want to pour my limited energy into productive means.
I would rather spend my time working at a job that I love, writing this blog, writing fiction, reading books, cooking delicious food, laughing with my friends, spending time with my family, etc. than I would being angry at my body for not working correctly.
I developed inflammatory arthritis because there is a strong history of autoimmune disease on both sides of my family – and most of us have different autoimmune diseases – so there’s no point in spending a large amount of time being angry with my body for doing what it was genetically predisposed to do.
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If I only have a certain number of “spoons” per day, I don’t want to spend them hating myself or my body.
Now, if you don’t have an official diagnosis yet – or at least one that you think fits your symptoms – I would advise accepting the things you can’t change but also fighting tooth and nail to find a doctor who takes you seriously and helps you find your correct diagnosis.
You deserve a diagnosis and a treatment, and you deserve to love yourself regardless of if you have a chronic illness.
I’m not going to wait for a miracle to love myself, and you shouldn’t either.
I’m not going to wait to be “better” to love myself, and you shouldn’t either.
I’m not going to wait for a medication dose to decrease or to go into remission to love myself, and you shouldn’t either.
I accept that there are things that will make me feel worse, some of which aren’t under my control, but some of which are.
I know that’s super vague. That’s intentional.
Here’s the deal.
If I overdo it because I refuse to accept that I have a severe autoimmune disease, I will suffer for days if not weeks.
If I eat gluten because I refuse to accept that my immune system will attack me if I eat gluten, I will be in excruciating pain.
If I try to run normally because I refuse to accept that my ankles are fused, I will fall down.
If I refuse to drink more than 6 cups of water a day because I refuse to accept that I have POTS, I will pass out and/or throw up.
If I don’t take my daily inhaled medication because I refuse to accept that I have asthma, I’ll have asthma attacks.
You’re probably getting the picture.
As of right now there’s no cure for any of my BS, so it doesn’t make sense to reject the reality of my body.
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That doesn’t mean that I expect you to read this post and go, “Wow, I totally accept every aspect of my body and love myself! Thanks, Kate.” But I do think that I can help you on your acceptance journey, so let’s talk about how to accept it.
6 Tips for How To Accept a Chronic Illness
Tip One: Identify the specific issues and what’s causing them and be mad at those.
As I’ve said throughout this post, acceptance does not mean giving up, and it doesn’t mean being okay with you feeling poorly. Be mad!
But …
Be mad at the disease itself. Be mad that, I don’t know, you got strep throat and your body responded by developing arthritis.
Be mad that your country’s government didn’t react to COVID-19 appropriately so you got it and developed Long COVID/Post-COVID Syndrome.
Be mad that you got a different virus and as a result developed dysautonomia.
Be mad that eating gluten triggers your disease.
Be mad that you have to take a lot of medication.
The only thing you shouldn’t be mad at is yourself.
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Tip Two: Treat yourself
Loving your body regardless of how you feel is important. As I’ve said in this post, you deserve love, especially from yourself.
Ask yourself: what is something that makes you happy and isn’t necessarily affected by your chronic illness?
For example, if you used to love running but now you can’t do it as much, don’t buy yourself new running shoes. That will just make you sad.
Do you love reading, but you have a hard time reading physical books now? Treat yourself to an audiobook subscription! (Psst – this post has a list of my favorite audiobooks.)
Do you like makeup, but you don’t go anywhere anymore because you have a suppressed immune system in a pandemic? Buy yourself some new makeup just for yourself!
Do you like movies, but you don’t go to movie theaters because you have UC or Crohn’s and might end up spending the whole movie in the bathroom? Splurge and rent a movie that’s currently in theaters so you can pause when you need to!
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Tip Three: Make a list of things you like about your body or yourself
If you’re having a hard time, consider making a physical list of things you like about yourself and/or your body. And don’t be modest!
Here’s an example of things I like about myself:
- I’m smart
- I’m good at makeup
- I’m a good friend
- I’m a positive person
- I’m a great advocate for other patients
- I’m good at public speaking (and I’m not afraid of it)
- I’m generous
- I’m self-aware
- I’m creative
- I’m a good writer
If you’re having a really hard time, text a friend or family member and ask them what they like about you. Then screenshot that text so you can look at it when you need to. (I’ve done this and I give it a 10/10.)
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Tip Four: Find a counselor to help
Fun fact: you don’t have to have a mental illness to go to therapy!
The NHS explains, “During talking therapy, a trained counsellor or therapist listens to you and helps you find your own answers to problems, without judging you” (x). Therapy can help you if you’re going through a difficult life event, or even if you just want to make sure that things stay okay.
All of this is to say: talk to a counselor, specifically one who specializes in chronic illness. Psychology Today has an amazing resource to help you find a therapist, and you can filter by focus, insurance, their gender (including non-binary!), the patient age they specialize in, the price, the price of seeing them, the type of therapy they provide, the ethnicities they serve, and so much more.
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Tip Five: Try meditation or mindfulness
Now, I’m not suggesting this because they can help with symptoms (I have never had either help any of my myriad of symptoms) but because they can help your mentality. Which is the entire point of this post.
The Mayo Clinic says, “Meditation is considered a type of mind-body complementary medicine. Meditation can produce a deep state of relaxation and a tranquil mind,” which can help your emotional well-being (x).
The point is not to eliminate your problems but to help you manage your problems.
Most importantly, the benefits of meditation last beyond your meditation session (x). So it’s not like things are more manageable only when you’re meditating.
There is also mindfulness.
And yes, they are different things!
verywellmind says: “Mindfulness is the practice of becoming more fully aware of the present moment—non-judgmentally and completely—rather than dwelling in the past or projecting into the future. It generally involves a heightened awareness of sensory stimuli (noticing your breathing, feeling the sensations of your body, etc.) and being ‘in the now'” (x).
Mindfulness can be achieved through meditation, but meditation is not automatically mindfulness, if that makes sense.
Mindfulness involves “paying attention to your sensations, feelings, thoughts, and environment in the here-and-now with an attitude of acceptance” (x). See that last word? Acceptance – the entire point of this post.
Tip Six: Connect with other patients
It can be so exhausting to try and talk to healthy people about chronic illness things, and if you don’t regularly talk to other patients, you might not realize how much of what healthy people say and do impacts your view of yourself.
Talking to someone who just gets what you’re dealing with, even if they don’t have your exact illness, can be so beneficial. They understand how hard some of these things are to deal with, and from personal experience. You don’t have to one down your feelings because you’re worried about hurting them if they realize exactly how you feel.
Talking to other patients can also help you accept your chronic illness because you can be around other people (at least virtually) who accept theirs.
Social media is a godsend if you have a chronic illness. You can get social interaction online in a way that’s hard for us to do in person. On a lot of sites, you can search #chronicillness or # your specific chronic illness (like #rheumatoidarthritis) to search for users talking about that.
Learn more about making friends with chronic illnesses here.
It can take a lot to accept your body, but I hope that reading this post has helped you on your journey. You are worth it!
Like this post? Share it! Then check out:
What Is Self-Advocacy? An Answer + Strategies To Help, Living Life with Chronic Illness: Common Problems & Their Solutions, We Need To Talk about the “Disease Warrior” Model, Why You Must Track Symptoms of Your Chronic Illness + Freebie To Help
This post is an updated version of a post from 2016. View that here.
Kate Mitchell is a blogger, chronic illness patient, and advocate who helps people understand chronic illness and helps chronic illness patients live their best lives.
Great tips. For me, connecting with others who have my condition has been immensely helpful in reaching acceptance and in knowing that I’m not along.
Extraordinarily thought provoking and well-written, Kate. You have a reasoned voice for the emotional matters that surround chronic illnesses, and that’s not easy to do.
Great tips thank you for sharing! Keep spreading your light!
Great read! I am living with chronic illness myself so I know how hard it can be to accept it. Thanks for sharing
This is an extremely well-written post and is very insightful into what it feels like to live with chronic pain/illness. I have chronic pain from a car accident and acceptance is definitely the first step and a huge step in learning how to live with it. Once you’ve accepted it, you can move forward! Thank you for sharing1
Thanks for sharing. I’m still in the some sort of “autoimmune” arthritis but we aren’t sure which one yet. Coupled with moderate asthma, I’m at high risk of severe disease. I’ve manage to avoid Covid, but have had pneumonia and severe bronchitis in the last few months. Its hard.