If you live with chronic illness, then you know that maintaining hope can sometimes feel hopeless. Especially during the depths of winter, when melancholy can once again sink its teeth into our most vulnerable places.
“Tonight, once more, life sinks its teeth into my heart.” – Simone de Beauvoir
The last thing you need to hear is some Pollyanna advice to keep your chin up and things will get better. Sometimes what we need is a commiserate voice that laments with us by saying - this is really hard. Because life is growth and change, and that can sometimes feel like two steps forward and one step back.
“A breakdown isn't just a pain, though it is that too of course; it is an extraordinary opportunity to learn.” - Alain de Botton, A therapeutic Journey
In the ‘one step back’ moments it can be easy to give up hope and to feel naive in entertaining the idea that there's a better time and place somewhere in the future when things will finally be easy. This is when we need to be reminded that in order to maintain hope, we need to manage our expectations.
“A breakdown is not merely a random piece of madness or malfunction, it is a very real - albeit very inarticulate - bid for health and self-knowledge.” - Alain de Botton, A therapeutic Journey
In today’s culture this means, in large part, examining who we are comparing ourselves to. The saying attributed to Theodore Roosevelt is still so true today – ‘Comparison is the thief of joy’. It can be the most humbling and comforting question to ask - Who is living a life free of pain, turmoil and suffering? The answer is no-one.
“Vulnerabilities and compulsions cannot be curses that have just descended upon us uniquely; they are universal features of the human mental condition.” - Alain de Botton, A therapeutic Journey
Your chronic illness is not a curse bestowed upon you, so that you may suffer uniquely. Given the right frame, it might even be a blessing from which you find connection and camaraderie with others who suffer too. Tempering expectations that life should be all roses and fluffy ducks, we might see how normal dead leaves and the dirty ground truly are.
“The wisdom of the melancholy attitude lies in understanding that our suffering belongs to humanity in general.” - Alain de Botton, A therapeutic Journey
This is the dance of maintaining hope while managing expectations when facing these three powerful forces – winter, chronic illness and melancholy.