How do you Talk about Your Illness?

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How do you talk about your illness? Which words do you use to talk about your illness? What is your tone when you speak about it? How do you stand while talking about your illness and what about your body language? How do you describe your illness to your doctor, friends or your family?

For me, there is nothing worse than someone who bangs on and on about their illness. It’s exhausting. Especially when there is nothing you can do to help them and it doesn’t seem to be going away.

There is only so much of this I can listen to before I want to back away and never ask them how they are ever again. It’s unnecessary to go on and on like this. It doesn’t help anything.

Everyone is fighting something. Everyone has something huge to deal with in their life.

As a chronically ill person, I choose to discuss my illness as little as possible. I don’t want it to leak into my life. I don’t want it to be all they see. I don’t want it to get me down.

The more I think about it, the more I can’t ignore the impact of my speech upon my attitude. How I talk about my illness directly impacts how I feel towards my illness.

So this is my New Years Resolution when I need to discuss my illness, I will speak positively about ITP for a whole year.

Here are my alternatives… Instead of saying

“I am sick” I will remember to say “I am a healthy person, who is currently unwell.”

Instead of moaning to my friends “Why did this happen to me?” I will remind myself that I am stronger and more interesting than people without ITP (Ha!).

Instead of telling myself, “I can’t get better without drugs”, I will say “I don’t yet know how I can get better without drugs. But I know there is a way.”

When people ask me how long I will have ITP for, I won’t tell them “There is no cure.” I will say, “They have not found a cure yet.

I will exchange “The doctors aren’t helping me” with “I can help myself.

Instead of telling myself, “I am sick of explaining ITP to everyone”, I will remind myself that I am lucky people are so interested in my illness.

I won’t think, I’ll never be better. I will tell myself, I don’t know everything.

It’s incredibly patronising to be told you need to stay positive, with an 18-month-old child that has a platelet count of 3. But that is exactly what I am going to say it. This is when you need to hear it the most.Your mind is an incredibly powerful organ and has a huge influence.

Speaking in a positive way, and using positive words is certainly not going to cure your ITP, or mine. But what it will do is change your day. Speaking positively about your illness will help you to not be a negative horrible person that no one wants to be around. And when your feeling better. You might just have a chance to cure your ITP on your own.

 

by Meg

Meghan Brewster is a writer and blogger. She is an ITP patient and launched ITP&Me in 2011. She is a coffee lover and a try hard dancer. @meghan_brewster

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