Chronic Illness Grief Represents Healthy Self-Love
Disclaimer: I am not a mental health practitioner. This theory is based on my own experiences.
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Chronic Illness Grief
Is a term that refers to the period of depression and mourning that occurs after the diagnosis of an incurable illness.
Severe chronic illness grief may be secondary or reactionary depression. This carries with it all the symptoms of normal depression such as:
-low mood
-uncontrolled crying
-loss of interest in passions
-inability to feel pleasure
-fatigue
-self-harm
-recklessness
-suicidality
These symptoms can be severe and quite disruptive even if they are part of a natural response to a life-changing diagnosis.
If you are experiencing chronic illness grief it is important that you reach out to someone such as a therapist, counselor, or peer support worker who can help you process these emotions. Acceptance Commitment Therapy or ACT is highly effective for this. See mental health and peer support highlight reels for more info.
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What is grief if not love persevering?
What this quote means is that when we grieve for something we do so because we lost something or someone we love.
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Chronic Illness Grief Is Self-Love Persevering.
When we love who we are and chronic illness drastically alters and disrupts that sense of self, the result is grief for the person we used to be. This grief comes in large part from the love we had for ourselves.
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High Levels Of Chronic Illness Grief Indicate Strong Self-Worth
Contrary to the idea that chronic illness grief is self-hating or self-deprecating, if this grief comes from a place of self-love we can actually expect people with high self-worth and a healthy position of self-love to experience high levels of resulting grief.
We should not see chronic illness grief as a failure of self-worth. Rather it is a testament to the strength of our self-love and self-worth that we undergo this grieving process.
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Chronic Illness Grief Comes in Waves
Grief is a process. It is not linear and no "stages of grief" can ever truely capture it. For chronic illness grief this is compounded by the ups and downs of remissions, relapses, treatment failures and so on.
But after each wave if there is a lull there will be mental healing. Just as with the death of a loved one, the level of dehbilitating mental distress fades over time as acceptance of whatever new reality you are facing next takes hold.
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Chronic Illness Grief Is Undying
But just as with the death of a loved one, chronic illness grief also never truly fades. As long as you love the person you used to be, you will never stop mourning for that person. And that's okay.
Grief does not end. We simply grow around it.
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Self-Love Can Be Plural
You do not have to stop loving the person you were to love the person you are now. Just as you can have multiple friends, you can have multiple authentic versions of self-relation and self-expression.
You don't have to think that chronic illness changed you for the better, or that you are the same person as you were to still have self-love.
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Loving Yourself With Chronic Illness Is Hard, Learning From The Past Can Help
It can be extremely difficult when your body seems to be betraying you and working against you to maintain self-love. But if you experience strong chronic illness grief look to what you are mourning and see if there are ways you can view those traits in the person you are now.
For example, you might be mourning the loss of your career. But you can still love yourself for being someone dedicated and persevering even if what you are dedicated to has been forced to change.
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Moving Forward
Chronic illness grief is mourning the loss of the people we were. That pain will not get smaller. But you can learn to build around it.
The self love that drove you to grieve for your past self can empower you to build love for the person you are now.
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Chronic Illness Grief is normal, and it is born from self-love.
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So often we see grief over Myalgic Encephalomyelitis aka MECFS or other chronic illness as failing to love ourselves.
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But this form of reactionary depression is indeed grief, and by looking at what we are grieving we can see this application in a new light.
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We grieve the loss of things we loved will never get back. In chronic illness, this means grieving our healthy selves.
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But grieving for our past selves reflects our love for them. Our deep compassion, hope, and appreciation for who we were and the future ahead of us.
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What is grief, if not love persevering?
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Chronic illness grief is our self-love persevering.
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But that love does not need to die for us to move forwards. You can love who you were, the life and future you had, and also come to love who you are and the radically different life ahead of you.
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Indeed, loving yourself in the past, your chronic illness grief should be an assurance to yourself that you are capable of deep self-love.
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Grief never goes away. But we grow around it.
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You don't have to let go of missing the person and life that was stolen from you to grow a new life around that grief and loss.
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