When you’re diagnosed with a chronic illness/chronic pain your life changes instantly and it’s not always easy to go with the flow. You want to hold onto things that were part of your healthy life, but your body just won’t cooperate. So here’s a few things that I’ve had to let go because of chronic illness.
1. Perfection
Once upon a time I had a daily cleaning schedule that was strictly adhered to and the result was a almost spotless house. Then kids happened which made my house not so spotless, but still I was able to keep it clean by normal standards (if not my overly perfectionist ones). Then chronic illness happened and everything went to hell. My once spotless house now has random piles of papers, toys, backpacks, books, and clothes. My once spotless kitchen floor is swept, but not mopped. My beautiful wood floors that used to sparkle now look smudgy because I haven’t been able to get on my hands and knees to wipe them down.
I have had to learn to suppress the perfectionist side of myself and let certain things go around the house. Instead of a shiny magazine friendly house, now I strive to at least clean up the dirt. I just can’t physically maintain the perfect house anymore. At this moment I am annoyed because both the bathrooms are starting to look gross, but here I am sitting on the couch. I wish I could clean the bathrooms to perfection, but I know my body can’t take it today so I’m letting it go. We aren’t in danger of drowning in filth, there is always tomorrow.
2. Defining yourself by your job
I’ve always been a hard worker. In high school I worked multiple jobs at a time to earn money for college. In college I worked 35 hours a week on average while attending school full time. I was always busy working and considered myself successful because I was able to financially support myself. Then came chronic illness which made those crazy work hours completely impossible. I had defined myself so long through my work and financial accomplishments I didn’t know myself. I felt like I was a failure and that I didn’t count as a person. This is something I’m still working on letting go of, but slowly I’ve begun to realize that my worth as a human being is not tied to my job or how much money I make. Even if I never achieve something miraculous, I can be a good person and that is enough.
3. Being the social butterfly
I hate being alone so much that it makes me grumpy and depressed, and as you can imagine being sick has led to me being alone often. I used to spend all my free time socializing because that was how I got my energy. I rarely turned down an opportunity to do something with friends, even if I had just worked all night and was exhausted. Nowadays I’ve had to learn that I can’t attend everything even if I want to. I have to prioritize what is the most important to me and let myself stay home alone and miss out on certain things. I hate being left behind and I don’t know if I’ll ever let this go completely, but I’m working on it.
4. Exercising the way the doctor tells you to
We’ve all heard that we would probably feel better if we exercised more and lost more weight. If we just spent an hour jogging five days a week all our problems would go away. I have put this to the test multiple times. I used to be an active person so I want to be active again. Dozens of times the past few years I’ve tried to keep an aerobic exercise routine. Every single time it ends in me hurting more than before and being so exhausted I have to spend days in bed. It took me a while to learn my lesson, but eventually I realized I needed to trust my body and not the doctor’s bad advise. My body cannot handle intense aerobic exercise anymore. Instead I need to do gentle exercise like walking or yoga. I’m in a lot less pain if I take care of my body the way I know how, even if it doesn’t result in the weight loss I’d like to see. Overall it’s better for me to improve my health then focus on just my weight.
5. Other people’s opinions
By nature I’m a people pleaser, but I also have a low tolerance for B.S. These two characteristics give me an interesting personality, and in the long run I think that has helped me get through being sick. People judge me all the time. They judge that I’m not skinny enough, the judge that I haven’t accomplished enough, they judge that I sit around all day and don’t do anything, they judge that I can’t work etc. etc. etc. It used to bother me that I was being judged so much, but then I realized people are going to judge no matter what. I don’t have to tolerate their judgement, I’m just going to get over it, move on, and dwell on the important people in my life.
If someone is sucking the life out of you, let them go because they are affecting your health. Click To Tweet6. Toxic relationships
Toxic relationships are never good to hang onto, even if you’re healthy. However, when you have a chronic illness they’re even worse because you have limited energy, and you don’t want to use it all on someone who is toxic. If someone is sucking the life out of you, let them go because they are affecting your health.
Letting go of all these things won’t miraculously make you better, but it will help you to live your live with chronic illness to the fullest.
De
My Mother has scoliosis… It was so difficult to watch her struggle with the pain as it kept getting worse. She has always kept her diet all natural, weekly chiropractic visits, acupuncture, massage therapy and everything else you can think of. At age 63 after my younger brothers funeral she fell asleep while driving her 1990 Honda accord and drove up over the sidewalk, over 2 large rhododendron bushes, threw a small guard rail and then a dead end sign, then barely missed a tree and large electrical utility box and was heading right for a house when she was able to finally stop!!
Afterwards her back was much worse, she could barely move. I could not stand by and watch so I started doing research. I had her try a lot of different hopeful solutions when Finally I found a simple ancient technique that focuses on overall healing and when she followed the Ancient teachings She you wont believe what happened! She said her pain levels went from a constant 6, 7 up to 8 out of 10 pain level down to 0! YES A ZERO my whole family was amazed! she said she felt like she was 40 again! I am so happy that I found this program. here is the web address to the site http://bit.ly/mypainrelief2019
I so agree about ending toxic relationships. I realised I was in a few and once I became unwell had no time for them, or their disregard for my health. One of the best things I did was to end it and look after myself.
I’m getting better at this as I get older and sicker. I just don’t have time or energy to waste anymore!
This post really resonated with me, especially your first point about perfection. One of the first lessons I learned was to leave that need to be an A+ achiever behind. Do it well, but it doesn’t need to be perfect. As for your comments about being the social butterfly, that was me before I got sick. I very rarely make an effort to go and talk to someone new IF I’m out anymore. It’s exhausting trying to keep up with the people I do know!
I can’t tell you how many toxic relationships I let go, but I feel no remorse over them. People that were taking more than they were giving had to go.
I’m the same way, used to be a social butterfly, but have let quite a few relationships go. I just don’t have the energy to deal with people anymore, so I keep a few really important friendships and focus on those.