Chronic illness and feeling all alone

There are very few things in life that make you feel as alone as chronic illness does.

It was a warm night. Somehow the Dutch weather had missed the memo on spring and gone from winter to summer overnight. I knew it was going to be muggy in bed but had no reason to suspect that a new bout of insomnia was going to start or that it would go on for 4 nights. The first night, I thought it was the weather. The second night I thought “oh well, it is the LDN withdrawal, it should be okay in a day or two”. The third night I thought “I’d rather die” for about a minute but then quickly told myself “come on, we’ve been through this before but this time we have Dr. Q, she will sort it out.”

The fourth night I broke down.

It felt like groundhog night, like I was reliving the same night over and over and over again, with no change or end in sight. In that moment, the mind starts playing tricks on you. It makes you think that there is no point in living like this, that surely death must be better? It makes you feel all alone, even when the person you love the most is hugging you and trying to comfort you with all their heart; even if you know several other people in different parts of the world who are, in that very moment, suffering just as you are. It makes you think that either none of these exist or even if they do, that they don’t matter.

This is the most cruel aspect of living with a chronic illness. You are scarcely allowed hope, even in a good moment, for you know that nights like this are just around the corner. You can rarely grieve, for the tiniest of good moments deceive you into doubting the extent of your illness, preventing true acceptance. You end up thinking that you are alone, surely?

In that moment, yes, you are alone. No matter what anyone says, no matter how positive a person your are or how mindful you are, in that very moment, you are truly alone. Anyone who says otherwise has not lived with a chronic illness.

However, if you just hold on for a bit longer & dawn breaks, you will either not be or feel alone.  That does not take away the loneliness you feel in the moments of deepest despair, nor does it guarantee that those moments will not return, of course.

What it means is that that for as long as there is a dawn at the end of every night, you will not feel or be alone forever. That is surely a thing worth holding onto.