Emotional Autoimmunity

Navigating the emotional side of autoimmune diseasese.

How to talk about chronic illness and get the best chance of support.

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If you have ever tried talking to your partner, friends or family about your chronic illness and why it’s changed you and what you can and can’t do now, then you know exactly how difficult and frustrating it can be.

People just don’t listen. People try to make you feel like you are constantly whinging or exaggerating the symptoms or using it as an excuse to not do things you don’t want to do.

When people don’t seem to want to listen or put you down for trying to get support and understanding, it can leave you thinking that there is no point talking about it at all.

So you give up and feel even more isolated and alone.

Then there is the other side of the conversation: What do you say when you are the partner or friend or family member of someone who has chronic illness?

How can you offer them support and empathy and a safe space to vent when you just don’t even know what to do or say to help them?

There is a way to talk about your chronic illness that will give you the best possible chance of being heard and understood AND there is a way to listen and help someone living with chronic illness in a way that will make you feel that you are actually helping and comforting them.

It’s all here in this video.

Step by step, I will walk you through the process, break down the skills and give you the best tips I know to clearly communicate how you feel and to be able to listen without feeling the pressure to “solve the problem.”

If you have any questions after watching the video, head on over to my Facebook page: Emotional Autoimmunity and send me a message.

Once you have the right strategies, you can feel more supported, understood and connected that you believed possible.

best wishes

Kerry

 

What you can do about those toxic people in your life.

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Do you have toxic people in your life?

Then you are not alone.

Toxic people are difficult enough to deal with for everyone but when you add having chronic illness into the mix, it takes it to a whole  new level!

Why?

Because getting chronic illness means that you have less energy, less resilience and if you have adrenal issues like me, less of the “fight or flight” hormone cortisol, to deal with all of the stress that toxic people bring with them.

Below is a live Facebook broadcast that I held last Saturday June 2nd and during this video I cover the following points:

  • How toxic people affect you.
  • Why it’s worse with chronic illness.
  • The sorts of behaviours that toxic people display.
  • The different types of abuse you can experience from toxic people.
  • The hierarchy of toxic people you may experience, from least to most difficult and why.
  • The strategies you can use to help yourself.

I also answer a few questions at the end from viewers who joined me live.

If you have toxic people in your life, this video will give you some insights, strategies and tools to use to help you help yourself.

I hope it helps you.

 

Do you have toxic people in your life?

Then you know just how much stress, pain and damage they can do to your life and health.

I’m sharing everything I know about toxic people with you, including simple steps you can learn and use to help you eliminate the guilt and manipulation.

If you have toxic people in your life, you need to watch this.

Posted by Emotional Autoimmunity on Friday, June 1, 2018

Are you really being a “whiny baby”?

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Are you really being a whiny baby?

We were having a very interesting discussion in my Emotional Autoimmunity Recovery Support group on Facebook today and it really struck a chord with a whole lot of people.

( P.S.The group is for a safe space for anyone living with chronic illness who wants to talk about all of the emotional challenges it brings.

You can find it here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/earec/ )

When it comes to talking about what is bothering you or making you feel sad or frustrated or hopeless, so many people don’t share for fear of being seen as “a whiny baby.”

A complainer.

A whinger. 

A victim. 

What is even worse is that so many people have actually been told that they are being “whiny babies” or “acting like victims” or “always complaining.”

Which means that so many people don’t seek support or validation or understanding from those close to them, for fear of being judged or labeled. 

Which is also why it is professionals like myself, who are very often the first to hear and really validate all of the things that you may have been struggling with for years, if not decades. 

But there are other barriers to sharing how you feel that also get in the way.

Let’s go through them one by one:

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What are you more afraid of: Anger or grief?

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One of the things that we are all really good at is repressing emotions.
You know, stuffing them down?
Using food or alcohol to numb them and make them go away and of course, the problem with doing that is that you then have to deal with the consequences of all that numbing behaviour which causes problems of its own.
The thing is, that we are not taught how to deal with powerful emotions and if we are taught, it’s only about the ‘good ones’, even though many of us still have trouble letting the good stuff in and really feeling it.
But I digress.
There are two key, powerful emotions that most of us are taught to suppress: Anger and Grief.

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