Attitude and Chronic Illness

Most of you who will read this either know someone with a chronic illness or you have a chronic illness. In either case, you've had opportunity to experience the sinking feeling of finding out that someone's life will be forever changed.

It is relatively easy for a person with an illness to become depressed. After all, future plans inevitably will be altered. The person's dreams for retirement, and perhaps even the person's longevity, are significantly impacted. With something like Parkinson's Disease, where the person's physical ability is on a progressive downhill slide, frustration with not being able to do something today that was doable only a month ago is common.

In addition to any depression brought on by the illness itself, often the medications used to treat the symptoms will also contribute to depression.

The person with the illness is not the only person who may be depressed about it. The friends surrounding the person with the illness may also feel depression, especially people close to the individual such as spouses, children, siblings, and parents.

What can be done to help both the person who has the illness and the caring community deal with their emotional and spiritual states so that they aren't dragged down into despair?

I believe the answer is found in attitude.

Attitude is not only one's outlook on life and on day to day living, attitude also involves choosing what that outlook will be.

Attitude is the decision you make, either explicitly with conscious determination or implicitly with a vague resignation, on how you will approach the day.

I personally believe it is dramatically easier to have a positive attitude about things if you have a faith that fosters that kind of attitude. A person with a faith in God knows that life is a gift and that it is meant to be lived to the fullest; this person also knows that there is more to life than just what we experience in our short time here.

But even if you don't have a religious faith, even if you believe in none of that, you can still make the choice to seize each day by the horns and live life as fully and as vigorously as you can.

What point is there in moping about, feeling sorry for yourself? Look, our time here on earth is short; life passes quickly before our very eyes. If you have faith, rejoice in that! Rejoice in the opportunity to serve and worship God, receiving the joy and peace that can only come from him. This is your opportunity to experience what he can do in a way that healthy people can only imagine. And if you don't have faith -- if you believe that life here on earth is all there is -- then you especially need to jump up and make good use of every waking moment.

If you are the person with the illness, you owe it to those around you to have a good attitude. Let me repeat -- you owe it to them.. Why? They love you; they hurt for you; and the care for you. Don't imagine even for a second that they've forgotten what you are going through. But they don't want to hear about it all the time. They don't want to know about every little ache and pain.

The people around you have lives too. They have victories that need to be celebrated, losses that to be mourned, and aches and pains that require attention and comfort. They may be providing a caring, nurturing environment for you, but they need caring and nurturing too. After all, they're human. Everyone has something he's dealing with, whether big or small.

If you don't have the illness but are close to someone who does, your attitude is vital in helping to lift up the attitudes of those around you. Yes, you can be empathetic -- let the person know you care and are available -- but don't live life with an "Oh woe is you" approach. That doesn't help anybody. If your eyes light up when that person walks into the room, his eyes will light up too. If you show that you enjoy being around that person, then he will enjoy being around you as well.

That can do wonders for an attitude, and it can do wonders toward making that person feel that life is worth living.

All this being said, there are times when depression in the patient will need to be treated with anti-depressant medication. That's between the individual and the medical community.

Who am I to be saying all this? Why am I qualified to talk about the attitude that a person with a chronic illness should have?

I was diagnosed with Parkinson's Disease ten years ago at the age of thirty-eight. I am married and have four kids, and we are homeschooling them. I have a job and my wife teaches the kids.

I am too busy to just sit around and feel sorry for myself. My children need me to be a father; my wife needs me to be a husband; and my family needs me as an integral part of the household.

When I found out I had Parkinson's Disease, none of that stuff changed. I'm still a father, I'm still a husband, and I still have a life to live.

I'll admit it is tough having a good attitude some days, but faith gives me the courage to set my attitude with a smile on my face.

It is possible to have a positive outlook when faced with chronic illness. And I contend that if you don't fight against depression, it's all too easy to slide down that slippery slope of despair.

The disease doesn't define who you are. It just provides another challenge for you, another opportunity to live life at your very best.