“Everyone else is a little shell-shocked from COVID19,” my friend Pamela said,* “But as chronic illness warriors, we’ve been through this, and we know what to do.”
After the phone call ended what she said got me thinking. She’s right. The COVID19 scare isn’t easy for chronic illness warriors. It has the potential to wreak havoc on our compromised immune systems and we are high risk. I know many spoonies are scared right now, desperate to stay safe.
But here’s the thing: we’ve dealt with this kind of thing before. We deal with being sick and being alone and being high risk every single day of our lives. So while it sucks, I think we have been able to prepare for this better than many of the population. We are already careful with our health 24/7. We already know how to handle the loneliness that comes from isolation. We know how to weather life-threatening illnesses. We know what it’s like to lose jobs or be unable to go to school. COVID19 is just one more boulder rolling down the mountain — but we have had a dozen of those rolling down on us for months and years.
So today I want to challenge you to share your expertise. Here are three practical ways spoonies can be helping healthy people during COVID19.
- Share what has comforted you with over the years.
I’m sure that God has taught you many truths and offered you special compassion in your own struggles with loneliness, illness, and fear. Why not share what you learned with people who are now facing those issues in a way they might not ever have before?
For example, a lot of people are struggling with loneliness from not being able to be around people like usual. Something I learned about loneliness from being isolated is that loneliness isn’t wrong, but that even when we are lonely we’re not alone. What lessons have you learned that you can comfort others with right now? What songs or Scriptures were encouraging to you?
You earned many of those lessons the hard way — don’t make others do the same thing!
- Reach out and initiate conversations.
Something many chronic illness warriors seem to have a lot of experience with is maintaining friendships and other relationships virtually. Some of my best friends live in Minnesota, Iowa, Autralian, etc. and I’ve never even met them in person. Yet we’ve laughed together and cried together and shared so many memories. Many of my online friends were able to be there for me during chronic illness in a way in-person friends couldn’t.
Well, as everyone is practicing social distancing right now, many of them are lonely and not used to isolation. And loneliness is so, so difficult as spoonies know well. The thing is, all their activities are also cancelled. So this is the perfect opportunity for us to reconnect with people whose schedules are suddenly clear and who are craving human interaction.
But since people aren’t used to solely maintaining friendships virtually, you may need to be the one to initiate it and continue to follow up. Perhaps, like Esther, we’ve been prepared for such a time as this.
- Forgive them.
Suddenly everyone has extra compassion for us chronically ill warriors. They are getting a taste of what it’s like to deal with some of the things we deal with on a daily basis, and sometimes it’s easy to want to say “I told you so.” We told them that it was possible to get an illness without it being our fault. We told them we were lonely being isolated. We asked for help, but were forgotten. It’s easy to get frustrated with the sudden change in heart.
I’ve seen quite a few memes along the lines of “I told you so.” (My favorite said: “Try Yoga and coconut oil! That will prevent you from getting the Coronavirus.”)
But it’s not their fault healthy people didn’t have a chronic illness themselves and understand what it was like. And even if people may still not understand, let’s just be thankful for the increased compassion and awareness.
What other ways can we as chronically ill warriors help healthy people during this time? Share your ideas in the comments below!
*I’m paraphrasing, due to brain fog I can’t remember her exact words.