What should you do if an ill loved one won’t respond to emails or texts because they want to hide their pain, sadness, debility, or weakness? Forcing yourself on them will exacerbate their sense of loss of control. Leaving them alone, well, leaves them alone in their pain, sadness, debility, and weakness—not a good thing.
I’ve been on both sides of this dilemma. When going through rough patches of illness, I sometimes wanted to avoid people. Acting okay when I was not okay would have dishonored valued relationships, and sharing the truth would have made me talk about things I preferred not thinking about at the moment.
On the other side of this dilemma, I’ve been ghosted by friends who did not want me—or anybody—to see them when not their usual healthy and happy self. This includes salt-of-the-earth souls with a history of providing loving support during others’ rough patches.
To lay the groundwork for addressing this complex dilemma, a few ideas.
Patients benefit from maintaining a sense of control and their sense of self.
Accepting needed assistance helps patients maintain control by helping promote healing and by helping avoid setbacks
For patients receiving the support they need, they benefit from not talking about illness when they don’t have to and don’t want to.
Sometimes patients don’t know when they need to talk about the hard parts…or when they’ll benefit from talking about the hard parts.
With those ideas in mind, what should you do? I’ll tackle that in my next post.
Illlustration by Emma Mathes
from Healing Hope
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