Being the Family Member of Someone With a Chronic Illness

Though I’ve gotten a lot better at it, I still sometimes have to catch myself when I find that I am judging someone at first glance. As a psychology major in college, part of why I love psychology so much is because I feel like in no other field do you really get the opportunity to look at other people and deep dive into what makes them unique. People, in my experience, often have a lot more going on in their lives than is outwardly apparent. Sometimes, I feel like we can get caught up in thinking that we know all about someone when we don’t really. What has this person really gone through in their lives? What makes them who they are today? I, for one, am not someone whose life story is easily gleaned from simply looking at me. There are many aspects of me that make me unique, but the one that I want to talk about today is all about chronic illness and how it can affect individuals and their loved ones. 

I was in high school when I became a caretaker of someone with a chronic illness. It feels like it just happened one day, and there I was, trying to wrap my head around everything that was going on, without any real understanding of what may lie ahead. There’s no real training or preparing you can do to be ready for something like that to happen. Sometimes, suddenly, it just feels like a ton of bricks fell on you, and that can be really scary and really overwhelming. There was a period of a year or so where everything felt like “go go go,” and I just had to keep going, trying to figure things out, trying to adjust to the change, trying to remap my life.

Interestingly though, in a lot of ways, I feel like I was pretty lucky. I was in high school, so teachers and administration were more than happy to be flexible and meet me where I needed to be met. I also had another family member who was going through the same thing I was, so I didn’t feel quite so isolated. However, no matter the supports that you might have in place, having a loved one be diagnosed with a chronic illness is something that can feel like the rug just got pulled out from under you. Everyone reacts differently to the feeling of that rug being pulled. Touching on my own experiences, I spent a lot of time grieving and being angry, and for being angry, I sometimes felt guilty. It felt like the emotional roller coaster of all emotional roller coasters, and I was strapped in tight. 

I spent a lot of time reflecting and being upset and taking care of my family. When everyone else was still being a teenager, I did a lot of growing up. It took a long time for me to work through all the feelings that I had, and I still continue to address thoughts and feelings that I have now, nearly a decade later. The thing about certain chronic illnesses is that they either stick around for a long time, or don’t ever fully go away, which makes the healing process for everyone involved one that can be long and complex. I’ve learned to, for the most part, adapt to much of the change that continues to go on. That doesn’t mean that I don’t still feel those feelings that I felt for so long, on the contrary, I still do. Since the day everything changed, however, I’ve learned how to better sit down with those feelings and thoughts. Slowly but surely, I’ve learned to accept my own feelings about my loved one’s chronic illness, and I’ve learned how to better reach out to others, which is something that has invariably helped me heal. Every time someone sits down and listens to me talk about how I feel about my loved one’s chronic illness, I am forever grateful. I acknowledge the fact that it did take a while to get to where I am now, and that I still have some ways to go, but I also understand and acknowledge the fact that I have come far, and that I am okay.

My story might not reflect exactly what you might be going through as the loved one of someone with a chronic illness, but I hope that it helps you, even if to just show you that you are not alone in your experience, which is how I felt for the longest time. I also want to acknowledge the fact you are doing great, and to remind you to be patient with yourself; the thoughts and feelings that you are experiencing are totally valid.

One last thing, it’s okay to ask for help.

Ayanna Schubert

Birch Psychology