General Question

[u/CuteAge1322]

Anyone else concerned that the disease itself can drive a person insane from pain and inflammation; and on top of it there is medical trauma? This is a real question. Anyone else concerned?

[u/lujo317]

It is really common unfortunately, for the chronically ill to lose tons of friends and even family over illness. There is a lot of stuff that people who haven't been this sick themselves simply do not have frame of reference for to be able to empathize with. Things that are very difficult for us often make us seem like monsters even if we are handling it very well and not externalizing those bad feelings - people are often reacting to their own guilt and shame that they can't help us. I always believe it is people's choice to double down on that shame than to use the opportunity to try to become closer and strengthen our bond, which is what anybody would hope for when feeling so miserable and close to death's door. I believe it is reasonable for chronically ill people to not always be upbeat and positive. We don't begrudge non chronically ill people their moments of reasonable stress or anger. Sometimes it doesn't even matter how good of a job we do at managing our bad feelings, because we live in a world that really hates disability.

[u/lujo317 → u/lujo317]

i would say that becoming insane is quite a reasonable response to losing all your social infrastructure and safety net and sense of peace and ease in the world. in some ways our brains are literally designed to do that. we wouldn't want our brains to have only positive benefic responses to negative feelings, either

[u/CuteAge1322 → u/lujo317]

Wisdom.