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Chronic illness<\/strong> is hard for us to wrap our minds around at times. We typically think of illness in terms of It is difficult to comprehend that illness is not always visible<\/strong>. It is not because people don\u2019t care, it is because they don\u2019t understand. And how exhausting to be ill while having to justify and educate others about why that is. Isn\u2019t it enough, after all, to be sick and to continue to do life to the best of your ability? Being sick is a full-time gig<\/strong>. Most of the time, you don\u2019t get time off for good behavior.<\/p>\n So, if you are one of the brave souls plagued by chronic illness, you have been entrusted with yet another duty, to take care of yourself when it is hard to do so<\/strong>. And this doesn\u2019t just mean to take your prescriptions as prescribed, to eat what has been recommended, to show up for all of your doctor\u2019s appointments. It means not ignoring how these extra tasks affect your mental and emotional well-being<\/strong>. Unfortunately, we often try to treat the mind and the body as if they don\u2019t live in the same house but as if they are neighbors who only talk occasionally. Your physical health is going to affect your mental and emotional health and vice versa. Don\u2019t buy into the hype, recognize the reality.<\/p>\n There is a reason why stress causes flare ups<\/strong>. It\u2019s because it is a toxin<\/strong>. So, recognize when pollution has \u200bShanna Dickens is licensed clinical social worker in Wilmington, NC.\u00a0 Shanna has been a therapist for over 12 years specializing in the treatment of adolescents and adults who experience\u00a0trauma, anxiety, depression, chronic pain and secondary trauma in helping professionals.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Chronic illness is hard for us to wrap our minds around at times. We typically think of illness in terms of two extremes: having a cold which you will likely recover from or having cancer with the possible outcome of death. Rather illness, like everything else, is a spectrum. For some people illness is ongoing; […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1845,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1813","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stillpointcounselingandwellness.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1813","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stillpointcounselingandwellness.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stillpointcounselingandwellness.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stillpointcounselingandwellness.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stillpointcounselingandwellness.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1813"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stillpointcounselingandwellness.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1813\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stillpointcounselingandwellness.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1845"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stillpointcounselingandwellness.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1813"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stillpointcounselingandwellness.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1813"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stillpointcounselingandwellness.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1813"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\ntwo extremes: having a cold which you will likely recover from or having cancer with the possible
\noutcome of death. Rather illness<\/strong>, like everything else, is a spectrum. For some people illness is ongoing;
\nthere is no stop or start point. And people with chronic illness<\/strong> are often called upon to justify their
\nillness. Have you ever heard someone say, \u201cWell, you look fine\u201d? Or feel like a medical professional
\nignored symptoms<\/strong> that you were experiencing because the test results came back \u201cnormal.\u201d Ever had
\nsomeone suggest it might \u201call be in your head.\u201d<\/strong>?<\/p>\n
\nreached dangerous levels in your mind and body and start the clean-up process. Increase your supports,
\nlessen your stressors and consider seeing a therapist so you don\u2019t have to do it alone.<\/strong><\/p>\n
\nAuthor<\/h2>\n