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When I first heard my diagnosis of Multiple Sclerosis, I laughed with relief, my friend couldn't believe that it was happening and my husband stood in stunned silence, then began to discuss plans for an upcoming camping trip. Each one of us had to decide on the psychological strategies that we would use to cope with this chronic illness. Every person who has and every person who loves someone who has a chronic illness must make the same decision. The strategies fall into three major categories; acceptance, denial and misdirection.

It may sound strange to some of you who have never experienced years of misdiagnoses and constant assaults on your mental faculties to laugh in the face of such a diagnosis, but for me it was pure relief. All those years, countless hours of waiting room time, retelling of symptoms, not to mention useless prescriptions and referrals to counselors. For years I was told that everything was all in my head though I knew that what I was feeling and what my body was doing was physical not psychological and so it was with great relief that I accepted the diagnosis.

But just accepting a diagnosis isn't fully accepting the disease. For me, the best way to accept it was to gather as much information about my condition as I could. Learning is the key to understanding and without understanding you can't truly accept the illness. Through understanding and knowledge, you take control of the illness, it doesn't control you.

After learning all I could about the disease, I set out to learn about myself and how it affected me. By the simple journaling of my every day events I soon found a pattern emerging in my energy cycles, how my choice in food, activities and situations which seemed to aggravate or relieve my symptoms. I had the tools to empower me to control the situation through what I had learned. As an example with MS fatigue is a major problem. Through simple documentation I saw a pattern of times during the day when I had more energy, how taking a short nap during the day affected my fatigue and what happened to my body and mind when I refused to give in to the overwhelming tiredness and pushed forward. I could then arrange my day to successfully complete tasks.

Making progress and accomplishing goals within the boundaries of your abilities within your chronic illness is another step towards accepting it. If you continue to set goals well outside of your capabilities, you truly haven't accepted the illness; you are in denial.

Denial is the disbelief

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