Life after healing
Its not something you are probably thinking about when you’re in the process of trying to fix what is going on with you. You might have a distant dream of what healing looks like, just as I did, as a time where I would be symptom-free and off all medication. But actually can be huge challenges which really need to be part of your process, and which are good to be prepared for.
If you have had chronic illness for a long time then the illness will no doubt have moulded you and shaped your life, curtailed your abilities to do certain things and most importantly impacted your relationships. It may have completely shaped your identity as well as affected the power dynamics in the relationships within everyone in your family and those close to you.
Your healing, your complete healing, is going to mean a big shift in those power dynamics, possibly a complete overhaul of your identity and a redefining of who you are and how you see yourself. I’ve talked in an earlier post about how the identity of illness can act as a scaffold, a way of being that often needs to get tackled and dismantled as part of the healing process. But there is also a huge transition that needs to be honoured and respected of becoming someone that is limitless, perhaps for the first time in your life. And that transition can be a shock to the system, and not just for your system.
From my own experience although I hid most of my illness from my friends, it was definitely a bit readjustment for my husband to accept that I wax actually finally well. That I wasn’t just going to collapse from exhaustion or need recovery time for most days of the week and that it was permanent. I however, had outwardly tried to hide my illnesses and so my identity adjustment wasn’t perhaps as huge as many people who will need to completely redefine themselves once healed.
It is worth bearing this in mind when you are embarking on fostering major change in your body - life-altering change. And it may well be worth factoring in some kind of talking therapy as part of your after-care to help with the transition. The impact and the ripples of your healing on those around you will be hard to predict, as well as your own readjustment to the ways you have been living your life and the changes you may now want to make. And so having a space to process these things will allow you to better ease into this new phase of your life as smoothly as possible.
Image KangHee Kim