You are fine, enjoying life and making plans for the future. Good job, good home, good family. And except for the stress that normal good living entails, life seems to be working wonders. Then, in just a blink, a kind of pain strikes your chest. "It can't be a heart attack. I don't drink and I've stopped smoking some years ago". Rush to hospital and a whole day of tests follows. Then another one, and another one.
I was lucky. It wasn't my turn yet. But I can't stop thinking about those who were not. About those who are stricken by ill health and whose life circles round an illness. For some families, an illness becomes the aim of all their activities.
The menu is infinite. Diabetes, fibromyalgia, depression, renal problems, cardiovascular conditions, blindness, disability, etc. You name it and it's there. No one can really imagine the luck of being able to wake up in the morning without thinking of medication, injections, tests and the lot. When it strikes home one realises how many things are taken for granted, how life itself is taken for granted.
A 17-year-old suffers from depression and has attempted suicide several times. Her family is on the edge round the clock. Her mother stopped working because they can't leave her alone. The family income is reduced drastically. So the father finds a part time job. "At least to cover the treatment expenses," he says as he looks in empty space in disappointment. "I never thought my life would go this way," his concerned wife told me. "It's like being a policeman I suppose, to protect one's daughter".
Most of what they say and do during the day is around their daughter's depression. They phone each other four or five times during the day. "How is she?" he asks. They speak for minutes on each conversation without being able to talk about anything else. They can't speak of anything else. If they laugh and have fun they almost feel guilty. It feels as if they also have to share the sadness and hopelessness their daughter feels.
The other children in the family feel neglected but they have to stuff it. Mixed feelings really. "It's not that I am jealous of my sister," one sibling told me, "but I can't see my parents' life destroyed with what she does". "I miss their attention. It's like one she exists and they can't be bothered with anything else". It is true that fear and pain take over and parents in such circumstances often can't be happy with anything. Making their parents happy becomes almost a challenge for the other siblings.
Another family man had been facing diabetes for the last 10 years. First the husband and then one of the children. "Our life changed radically," the woman told me. "Everything changed, everything is different. Eating is different. We cannot eat most of the things we used to love eating." She recalled how in the beginning, going to the supermarket was a nightmare. Avoiding all the good food is so hard. "I can eat anything if I want to, but I avoid certain foods to save my husband and daughter a hard time".
I always wonder how hard life can be on those facing illnesses. Theirs becomes a problem-centred life. They learn to live with the illness but not necessarily accept it. Some do accept it however, but accepting it doesn't make it necessarily lighter. Some remain bitter for years and find it hard to accept the fact that they have to carry a burden for life.
One family approached me. The son has lost a leg in a car accident. He seems to want to play the strong son. "My parents took it so badly. My mother is always crying and my father is always looking sad. I can't accept that they took it worse than I did". His mother told me how life has become meaningless. She feels her son cannot achieve what he deserves in life and is afraid that he won't find anyone to share his life with. He can't continue with the sports he loved doing so much and instead is bound to a very limited list of activities. He also lost his job as it involved some travelling abroad which he can't really cope with now.
I wonder how many families there are without a cross to carry. If it's not a disease it's something else. What is helpful is to shift one's thinking to a pluralist one. Let me explain. There's the tendency to believe and think that if one has a malady, or someone dear to them has one, one is supposed to be sad and is expected not to show any signs of happiness or well being at all. This is called the either... or tendency (popularly known as black or white). This is very untrue. Had it been so, people would be miserable all their life. Learning to accept maladies as part of one's life is necessary in order to keep on getting the possibility of feeling happy.
Happiness and sadness can live together, hand in hand and beside each other. One may be feeling sad about something and happy about another. Good and bad don't necessarily have to come subsequently, or eliminate each other. They can co-exist like in the yin-yan oriental solution to life. For example I am very sad that my mum is in hospital, in pain, and struggling to recover. Yet, I am also very happy that my wife and children are simultaneously healthy.
The point is trying to free yourself from what you think people expect from you and being free to oneself. Being able to harbour different feelings at the same time is self respect and emotional intelligence. So move out of the either ... or trap of life and give yourself a possibility to experience both one feeling and another simultaneously. Excerise this by telling yourself "It is OK for me to feel this way". No, it's not "double personality", "multiple personality", Dr Jeckyl and Mr Hyde", or all the other crap some talk about. It's called psychological flexibility. It is the ability to bear with difference and complexity. It is not a contradiction but a synergy.
I hope this article gives hope to those who have been inflicted with the pain of illness for a long time. I hope it will encourage them to allow themselves to enjoy the other facets of life. I hope it will help them re-define their illness in a constructive way. As someone recently told me, feeling pain is a sign that one is alive.
• Dr Azzopardi is a systemic family psychotherapist.
I was lucky. It wasn't my turn yet. But I can't stop thinking about those who were not. About those who are stricken by ill health and whose life circles round an illness. For some families, an illness becomes the aim of all their activities.
The menu is infinite. Diabetes, fibromyalgia, depression, renal problems, cardiovascular conditions, blindness, disability, etc. You name it and it's there. No one can really imagine the luck of being able to wake up in the morning without thinking of medication, injections, tests and the lot. When it strikes home one realises how many things are taken for granted, how life itself is taken for granted.
A 17-year-old suffers from depression and has attempted suicide several times. Her family is on the edge round the clock. Her mother stopped working because they can't leave her alone. The family income is reduced drastically. So the father finds a part time job. "At least to cover the treatment expenses," he says as he looks in empty space in disappointment. "I never thought my life would go this way," his concerned wife told me. "It's like being a policeman I suppose, to protect one's daughter".
Most of what they say and do during the day is around their daughter's depression. They phone each other four or five times during the day. "How is she?" he asks. They speak for minutes on each conversation without being able to talk about anything else. They can't speak of anything else. If they laugh and have fun they almost feel guilty. It feels as if they also have to share the sadness and hopelessness their daughter feels.
The other children in the family feel neglected but they have to stuff it. Mixed feelings really. "It's not that I am jealous of my sister," one sibling told me, "but I can't see my parents' life destroyed with what she does". "I miss their attention. It's like one she exists and they can't be bothered with anything else". It is true that fear and pain take over and parents in such circumstances often can't be happy with anything. Making their parents happy becomes almost a challenge for the other siblings.
Another family man had been facing diabetes for the last 10 years. First the husband and then one of the children. "Our life changed radically," the woman told me. "Everything changed, everything is different. Eating is different. We cannot eat most of the things we used to love eating." She recalled how in the beginning, going to the supermarket was a nightmare. Avoiding all the good food is so hard. "I can eat anything if I want to, but I avoid certain foods to save my husband and daughter a hard time".
I always wonder how hard life can be on those facing illnesses. Theirs becomes a problem-centred life. They learn to live with the illness but not necessarily accept it. Some do accept it however, but accepting it doesn't make it necessarily lighter. Some remain bitter for years and find it hard to accept the fact that they have to carry a burden for life.
One family approached me. The son has lost a leg in a car accident. He seems to want to play the strong son. "My parents took it so badly. My mother is always crying and my father is always looking sad. I can't accept that they took it worse than I did". His mother told me how life has become meaningless. She feels her son cannot achieve what he deserves in life and is afraid that he won't find anyone to share his life with. He can't continue with the sports he loved doing so much and instead is bound to a very limited list of activities. He also lost his job as it involved some travelling abroad which he can't really cope with now.
I wonder how many families there are without a cross to carry. If it's not a disease it's something else. What is helpful is to shift one's thinking to a pluralist one. Let me explain. There's the tendency to believe and think that if one has a malady, or someone dear to them has one, one is supposed to be sad and is expected not to show any signs of happiness or well being at all. This is called the either... or tendency (popularly known as black or white). This is very untrue. Had it been so, people would be miserable all their life. Learning to accept maladies as part of one's life is necessary in order to keep on getting the possibility of feeling happy.
Happiness and sadness can live together, hand in hand and beside each other. One may be feeling sad about something and happy about another. Good and bad don't necessarily have to come subsequently, or eliminate each other. They can co-exist like in the yin-yan oriental solution to life. For example I am very sad that my mum is in hospital, in pain, and struggling to recover. Yet, I am also very happy that my wife and children are simultaneously healthy.
The point is trying to free yourself from what you think people expect from you and being free to oneself. Being able to harbour different feelings at the same time is self respect and emotional intelligence. So move out of the either ... or trap of life and give yourself a possibility to experience both one feeling and another simultaneously. Excerise this by telling yourself "It is OK for me to feel this way". No, it's not "double personality", "multiple personality", Dr Jeckyl and Mr Hyde", or all the other crap some talk about. It's called psychological flexibility. It is the ability to bear with difference and complexity. It is not a contradiction but a synergy.
I hope this article gives hope to those who have been inflicted with the pain of illness for a long time. I hope it will encourage them to allow themselves to enjoy the other facets of life. I hope it will help them re-define their illness in a constructive way. As someone recently told me, feeling pain is a sign that one is alive.
• Dr Azzopardi is a systemic family psychotherapist.