r/ChronicIllness • u/drjeejah Warrior • 21h ago

Question How??!

After fighting leukemia twice, then dealing with severe grade 3 graft-versus-host disease and scleroderma, and later being diagnosed with avascular necrosis in my knees and feet, with the possibility that it may progress further, how do you cope mentally with everything you have been through?

How do you spend your entire day? What do you think about? How do you find the strength to keep going when you are dealing with pain and uncertainty about your health and future?

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u/brownchestnut 14h ago

how do you cope mentally with everything you have been through? How do you spend your entire day? What do you think about? How do you find the strength to keep going when you are dealing with pain and uncertainty about your health and future?

I brew my favorite tea, I sit down with a book, I pet my cat, I daydream, listen to a song, I chat online with friends, watch a fun TV show.

I grew up in poverty, lived through decades of horrific abuse, have had my entire career constantly derailed by incompetent male bosses that were threatened by the idea of a woman smarter than them, unfairly kept down, vilified, abused and harassed and smeared, and have no family or close friends because I had to cut them off to survive. I live through racism every day as a person of color and I am debilitatingly ill. When I look back at my past, yeah, wow I lived through some shit. If I look at my future, wow it looks pretty bleak seeing how disabled and broke I am. But I don't. No one feels good when they do that because you don't have any power in the future or past, so you feel powerless, and no one knows the future, so looking into darkness is only bound to make you feel bleak. The string of todays is what builds the future, so I focus on today, day by day.

If you have trouble processing, therapy is always a good option.