The Reminder That Kept Me Going This Bad Week With Chronic Illness

Months ago, when I was complaining about how some of my symptoms were making it impossible for me to do my school work, my therapist reminded me, “This is only one moment.” At the time, I didn’t really get it.

This week, that quote has been everything. When my symptoms get worse, it can be easy to panic. When I feel like I can’t eat, or I’m too sick to do anything, it can be really scary. I worry that I won’t be able to eat again. That I’ll just get sicker if I can’t eat. And in those moments, it often feels like those problems will last forever.

When I have to lie in bed because I’m too sick to do my work, it’s easy for my thoughts to spiral. How will I ever finish this presentation if I’m too sick? How will I give this presentation? How will I ever do schoolwork again? In those moments, it’s so easy to feel broken. It’s easy to feel incapable of doing anything because often, I am.

But what’s important is that I probably won’t feel that way forever. Maybe in that moment, my pain feels unimaginable, but it won’t feel that way forever. There may be times in the future when it will get worse, but there will also be times it will get better.

This week has been a challenge for two reasons: my symptoms have been worse and I’ve been struggling to schedule doctors’ appointments. When my symptoms are so bad, it can be terrifying to imagine that I’d have to put up with them for even a few more hours. In the middle of that, when I called to schedule an appointment, I was told I could see the doctor in four months. Four months. I cried. I broke down completely. I had forced myself to call because I knew that I needed help. And yet, in that moment, it became clear that I wouldn’t get that help. At least not from that person.

In that moment, I absolutely did lose hope. I couldn’t imagine how I could possibly survive the next four months. I couldn’t even imagine surviving the next week. I couldn’t believe that I would still be alive four months from now if I were still dealing with these symptoms. I knew I would have to quit my job, that I would have to move away from my friends.

But luckily, after I was able to calm down, I could remind myself that “this is only one moment.” Yes, I felt so crappy and incapable of anything that day. But there had been other days since getting sick that I was able to go to work, that I could eat food, that I could see friends. Most likely, in the future, I would be able to do those things again. And if I couldn’t, maybe something else would change.

I still knew there was no way I could wait four months for an appointment. But I also knew that even if I didn’t have the energy to find another plan that day, maybe in the future I would. I knew that maybe another day, it would be possible to contact other doctors. I knew that even if the problem couldn’t be solved immediately, that didn’t mean it would last forever.

Living with chronic illness can be hard. Symptoms are unpredictable, you never know how long they’ll last. And some you know will last forever. But we don’t know everything. We have to believe that it will get better. That even when it feels impossible to keep going, “this is only one moment.”