When a Health Crisis Engulfs You

“I felt as if I had been hit with a sledgehammer.”—John, after learning that he had an impairing illness.

“I was scared.”—Beth, after realizing the seriousness of her health crisis.

LEARNING that you have a chronic and disabling ailment or that injuries from an accident will leave you permanently impaired is one of life’s most painful experiences. Whether you hear the news of your illness in a quiet doctor’s office or are brought face-to-face with your impaired condition in a hectic emergency room, you likely find yourself in a state of disbelief. Little in life prepares you to cope with the powerful emotions that engulf you when you are rocked by a devastating health crisis.

Caught in a Swirl of Emotions

“AFTER being told that I had a life-threatening disease,” recalls an elderly man, “I tried to put my fears aside, but feelings of uncertainty wore me down.” His words highlight the fact that after an illness has delivered a physical blow, it lands an emotional one as well. Even so, there are people who are successfully coping with such blows. Many of them would like to assure you that there are ways to deal successfully with a chronic illness. But before we discuss what you can do, let us first take a closer look at some of the emotions that you may face early on.

Disbelief, Denial, Dysphoria

The emotions that you feel may differ considerably from those of others. Nevertheless, health experts and ailing individuals note that people struck by a health crisis often experience a number of common emotions. Initial feelings of shock and disbelief may be followed by feelings of denial: ‘It can’t be true.’ ‘There must be some mistake.’ ‘Maybe they mixed up the lab tests.’ In describing her reaction to learning that she had cancer, one woman said: “You feel like pulling the covers over your head, and you hope that when you look out again it will all be gone.”

However, as reality begins to sink in, denial may give way to dysphoria, a feeling of unhappiness that hangs over you like a cloud of impending doom. ‘How long will I live?’ ‘Am I doomed to spend the rest of my life in pain?’ and similar questions may assault you. You may wish you could go back in time, before the diagnosis, but you cannot. Soon you may find yourself engulfed in a tide of other painful and powerful emotions. What are some of them?

Uncertainty, Anxiety, Fear

A grave illness thrusts severe uncertainty and anxieties into your life. “The unpredictability of my situation makes life very frustrating at times,” says a man with Parkinson’s disease. “Each day, I have to wait and see what it will bring.” Your illness may also frighten you. If it struck without warning, you may feel a crushing fear. However, if the diagnosis of your illness has come after you have spent long years fretting about symptoms that were misdiagnosed, the fear may be more insidious. At first, you may even feel a sense of relief that people will finally believe that you are really ill and are not making everything up. Before long, though, relief may be followed by a fearful realization of what the diagnosis entails.

Fear of losing control may also worry you. Especially if you value a measure of independence, you may cringe at the thought of becoming more and more dependent on others. You may worry that your illness is beginning to dominate your life and dictate your every move.

Anger, Shame, Loneliness

Sensing a growing loss of control may also trigger feelings of anger. ‘Why me? What did I do to deserve this?’ you may ask yourself. This blow to your health seems unfair and senseless. Shame and despair may also overtake you. One paralytic recalls: “I felt so ashamed that all of this had happened to me because of a stupid accident!”

Isolation may also close in on you. Physical isolation easily leads to social isolation. If your illness confines you to your home, you may no longer be able to socialize with old friends. Yet, more than ever, you long for human contact. After an initial burst of visits and phone calls, fewer and fewer may stop by or call you.

Since it hurts to watch friends pull away, you may have reacted to this painful experience by withdrawing into yourself. Of course, it is understandable that you may need some time before you face others again. But if at this point you allow yourself to withdraw ever further from others, you may sink from social isolation (when others do not come to see you) into emotional isolation (when you do not want to see others). Either way, you may be struggling with intense feelings of loneliness.a At times, you may even wonder if you can make it through another day.

Learning From Others

There is hope, however. If you have recently been engulfed by a health crisis, there are practical steps you can take that will help you to regain a measure of control.

Granted, this series of articles will not resolve your chronic health problem, whatever it is. Yet, the information presented may help you to see ways to come to terms with it. A woman with cancer summed up her mental journey: “After the denial came much anger and then the search for my resources.” You too can make that search, by turning to people who have traveled the same road before you and learning from them how you can tap into the resources that are within your reach.

[Footnote]

Living Successfully With Your Ailment—How?

BE ASSURED that the rush of feelings you are probably experiencing is valid. Although your illness or impairment may be a physical fact, your mind resists the changes that the illness has forced on you. It may seem as though you and your illness are engaged in a tug-of-war, a contest between who you once were and what you might become. And right now it may seem that your illness has the upper hand. Yet, you can turn the tables. How?

“When there is a loss through illness,” notes Dr. Kitty Stein, “it feels a lot like a death.” Thus, when you have lost something as dear to you as your health, it is only normal to allow yourself time to mourn and weep, much as you would if a loved one died. In fact, your loss may involve more than your health. As one woman explains, “I had to give up my job. . . . I had to give up the independence that I had always enjoyed.” Even so, keep your losses in perspective. “You’ve got to mourn what’s lost,” adds Dr. Stein, who herself has multiple sclerosis, “but you also need to understand what’s still there.” Indeed, once you have struggled through the initial tears, you will see that you have important resources still intact. For one thing, you have the ability to adjust.

A sailor cannot control a storm, but he can weather one by adjusting his boat’s sails. Similarly, you may not be able to control the illness that has stormed into your life, but you can cope with it by adjusting your “sails,” that is, your physical, mental, and emotional resources. What has helped other chronically ill ones to do that?

Learn About Your Illness

After absorbing the initial impact of the diagnosis, many come to feel that knowing the painful truth is better than facing a vague fear. While fear may immobilize you, knowing what is happening to you may help you to consider what you can do—and that in itself often has a positive effect. “Notice how much better you feel about anything that worries you when you come up with a plan for dealing with it,” notes Dr. David Spiegel of Stanford University. “Long before you have actually done something, you reduce your sense of discomfort by planning what to do.”

You may feel the need to learn more about your condition. As a Bible proverb says, “a man of knowledge is reinforcing power.” (Proverbs 24:5) “Get books from the library. Learn as much as you can about your illness,” advises a bedridden man. As you learn about available treatments and coping techniques, you may find that your condition is perhaps not as bad as you had feared. You may even find some reasons for optimism.

Understanding your illness rationally, though, is not your final goal. Explains Dr. Spiegel: “This information gathering is part of an important process of coming to terms with the illness, of making sense of it, of putting it into perspective.” Accepting that your life has been changed but that it is not over is a delicate and often slow process. But this step forward—from understanding your illness rationally to accepting it emotionally—is one you can take. How?

Finding a Delicate Balance

You may need to adjust your view of what it means to accept your illness. After all, accepting that you are ill is no sign of failure, just as it is no sign of failure on the part of a sailor to accept the fact that he is in a storm. Instead, being realistic about the storm prompts him to act. Likewise, accepting your illness is no failure, but it means “advancing in a new direction,” as a chronically ill woman observed.

Even if your physical abilities have diminished, you may need to remind yourself that your mental, emotional, and spiritual qualities do not necessarily need to be affected. For instance, do you still have your intelligence and the capacity to organize and reason? Perhaps you still have your warm smile, your sense of caring for others, and your ability to be a good listener and a true friend. And most important, you still have your faith in God.

In addition, keep in mind that although you cannot change all your circumstances, you can still determine how to react to them. Irene Pollin of the National Cancer Institute states: “You are in charge of your responses to your disease. You have this power no matter what your disease dictates.” Helen, a 70-year-old woman with advanced multiple sclerosis, confirms: “It’s not so much your illness but your reaction to your illness that determines whether you find your balance again.” A man who has coped with a disability for a number of years says: “A positive attitude is the keel that keeps the boat upright.” Indeed, Proverbs 18:14 states: “The spirit of a man can put up with his malady; but as for a stricken spirit, who can bear it?”