Chronic or Crisis? How's Your Support?

If you have a crisis in your life and need a sympathetic ear, I'm your gal. I have loads of empathy—and maybe some unasked for words of advice—for you as you deal with your problem. However, if you are still wallowing in the same problem months or even years later, I'm just not interested. I can't seem to muster up the enthusiasm to care. I find myself wondering why you're still in that place.

I'm not proud of those feelings. I'm just telling you how I am. I have a short attention span for pain and problems. I would never make it as a therapist.

So is it ironic or simply a lesson in maturity from God that I have a chronic illness? Maybe it's both. I've actually had this illness for 24 years, but when it only flared up once in 4 or 7 or even 11 years, it wasn't a big deal. It didn't feel chronic; it felt like a crisis. I would be incapacitated, even hospitalized. I would be given large doses of steroids. And it would be over, and I would be back to life as I knew it.

Now life as I know it includes chronic symptoms or, at least, daily medicine to keep chronic symptoms at bay. I have to make decisions around it, choosing what I can and can't do. It's rare for it not to come up in conversation. And yet I am very fortunate in how much I can do as I learn from the daily lives of others dealing with chronic illness.

Just like when you buy a new car you suddenly notice that car model everywhere on the road, when you have a chronic illness you suddenly become aware of how many people have one. According to the CDC, "In 2005, 133 million Americans—almost 1 out of every 2 adults—had at least one chronic illness," and "one-fourth of people with chronic conditions have one or more daily activity limitations." That's a lot of people with problems.

Now, those numbers include those with heart disease, cancer, diabetes and even chronic back pain. It also includes autoimmune disorders (the family of disorders my illness fits in) like lupus, scleroderma, and rheumatoid arthritis. Everywhere I go lately I hear of someone having an autoimmune disease, including two pastors' wives I talked with at a meeting recently. It includes ALS (better known as Lou Gehrig's Disease), which a missionary friend of ours has been diagnosed with. The MS a dear friend has also falls into the chronic illness category.

Maybe I just never paid attention before. Or maybe it's just that people with an invisible chronic illness tend to only open up to another victim. Maybe they've met too many people like the me of the past, who got bored of their "complaints" and just wanted them to get over it.

Yet people with chronic illnesses need to talk, to share their pain. The risks of not doing so are tremendous. According to the website of National Invisible Chronic Illness Awareness Week (which takes place in September of each year):

•  The divorce rate among the chronically ill is over 75 percent.
• Depression is 15–20% higher for the chronically ill than for the average person.
• Various studies have reported that physical illness or uncontrollable physical pain are major factors in up to 70% of suicides.

 So how can you help people dealing with a chronic illness?

• Be willing to listen (when you ask how they are and they say fine, ask again and say you really want to know).
• But also talk about things other than the illness.
• Smile.
• Provide times of laughter and fun.
• Recognize their need for rest (and don't make them feel guilty about it; they're doing that enough on their own).
• If they have kids, give them a break by taking the kids.
• Offer to clean house for them.
• Let them know about Rest Ministries, an organization that exists to encourage those dealing with chronic illness.
• Support their specific illness walk or fundraiser.
• Consider starting a Hopekeepers Group or some other support group/Bible study for those with chronic illness.
• Pray with them and for them.

I'm still not that great at long-term illness, in myself or others. But I am learning to listen, to ask the right questions. Hopefully you will, too, and hopefully without a chronic illness of your own.

And if you have other ideas on how to provide support, especially if you have a chronic illness (or a loved one does), please add a comment with your idea. Thanks.