Coping with the Grief of Becoming Disabled/Chronically Ill

Image description: A water color painting. The entire painting is mostly blue with scattered small yellow dots which symbolically appear open to interpretation. They may be small stars or sparks of light. Toward the bottom, a non-gendered body is depicted laying down on their side. End description.

Life has it’s challenges for all of us. It’s known as part of the collective human experience.

Being alive comes with what makes this journey magical, and what would this journey be without the balance of knowing despair and suffering to contrast the wonderful and beautiful happenings?

But there isn’t a lot of conversation surrounding the grief someone experiences when becoming disabled and/or chronically ill unexpectedly. The loss of your idealized future, the loss of being able to participate in the activities that used to bring you joy, the lack of accessibility and accommodations— the apparent lack of equity in a society that favors the able, and more.

Image description: Image of a body of dark water up. A hand reaches out from the water. End description.

It can make you feel so alone in a world you may feel uninvited from participating in. Even if you have some or tons of support, it can be difficult to receive when you’ve been able to handle life independently and prided yourself on it.. you may find yourself assuming you’re a burden. Let alone, some of us who are made to feel this way through certain behavior and/or language— whether intentionally or not, as in through another’s impatience, frustration, lack of consideration, assumptions, etc.

So, what do we do from here?

It’s important to recognize this as multi-faceted grief. Complex grief can really inundate our mind and spirit, while our body becomes enveloped by this silent war. So, naturally, it makes sense if you find yourself too overwhelmed to process the present reality, let alone, start to accept it.

Image description: The 5 Stages of Grief: Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, Acceptance. Each stage is color coded. Below, there is an illustration overlapping leaves using the color-coding of each stage of grief, depicting how these stages are not linear. They aren’t consequential. They are happening all at once and in their own timing. End description.

During a time of despair such as this, it can be hard to find hope. And if this next part I share with you is difficult to receive or feels offensive to the place you’re at in your own journey, please know that it’s okay. I wouldn’t have believed me either. I probably wouldn’t have wanted to. Don’t let me rush your process. But also please know that you’re welcome to share below about what you’re currently facing, regardless. If you look at the image below, where would you say you’re at generally? It’s natural for it to vary by the week, the day and even the moment.

Image Description: This is a chart of what the process of grief may look like in depth. On one end of the timeline reads “the hurt of loss” and at the very end it reads “Loss Adjustment”. In between these two points, in this order, they are listed: Shock, Numbness, Denial, Emotional Outbursts, Anger, Fear, Searchings, Disorganization, Panic, Guilt, Loneliness, Isolation, Depression, “Re-Entry” Troubles, New Relationships, New Strengths, New Patterns, Hope, Affirmation, Helping Others. End Description.

A lot of healing during this process requires patience to allow yourself to be angry, to feel upset and to acknowledge how stressful and difficult things feel. It’s okay to feel lost before you learn to adapt, and it’s okay to feel lost again. There are so many layers to our existence— you can feel confident in your ability to navigate one realm, and totally confused in another. This is also why support is incredibly crucial— to have a team of medical providers, if necessary, and people around you who make you feel safe and cared for, and that their support results in you feeling heard and understood.

If your formerly helpful ways of coping are no longer available to you (for example: you used to go hiking and camping, or out dancing, but now you’ve lost physical mobility to any extent) — it can be especially frustrating. If this resonates with you, naturally, you know you can still lean on the coping skills you do still have, but it’s possibly time to brainstorm some new ways of coping that you maybe heard and forgot about, or hadn’t even thought of. Like, y’all, we’re really out here forging our own path huh? (ˊ•͈ ◡ •͈ˋ)

What comes next… comes down to mindset. By imagining this process as painful and upsetting, it can be really hard to see that it can actually be a new adventure of self-exploration. Letting go of the future we imagined for ourselves and other things that we’re no longer able to do is tremendously devastating. Leaning into the experience with the mindset of curiosity and determination takes time to come to, but honestly changes the entire experience all-together.

It’s not to say it’s not without it’s challenges and difficult times, but if you find yourself consistently stuck in a state of suffering on an emotional level, it may be an opportunity to see if there are additional supports or resources that would help alleviate some of the obstacles you’re facing— whether emotionally, mentally, physically or spiritually, also whether the battles you’re up against are internal or outside of yourself.

In despair, it’s painfully easy to watch life pass us by and let life happen to and around us. It’s painfully easy to feel hopeless… and powerless. It’s up to us to challenge this— and nobody can make us ready before we are… but knowing this, we can start to mentally prepare for this shift.

Part of the healing process involves reclaiming your power and sense of identity and purpose, by taking an inventory of what you are still able to do and what you’re still able to do with accommodations. Which strengths can you still bring to the table? Which strengths of yours deserve to be reimagined than how they were used previously? It may also be helpful to seek new experiences to see your strengths in application, see dormant strengths being utilized in positive ways, and even discover strengths never before known or realized to you previously. This era, when you’ve arrived, is about shaping your life to meet you where you’re at— not in defeated compromise, but in equally as meaningful and purposeful ways.

This has been a bit of a novel, whew. And, this is dancing along the surface of the experience, too. Just another reminder that what we experience is so complex and deserves to be met with our own patience and mercy. All of this said, what are your thoughts?

Image description: A small wooden figurine of a heart that has been cracked down the middle. Next to the broken heart, lies 5 precious, tiny blue flowers bundled together. They are placed on a tree stump. The wood of the stump is fractured, or appears like a fissure of cracks. Description end.