How Therapy for Chronic Illness Can Help With Anxiety
Therapy for chronic illness involves helping you feel safe in your body even when you experience a flare up or scary bodily sensation. While anxiety can be a common symptom of managing a chronic illness, therapy can help you learn coping tools for chronic illness.
This guide to chronic illness anxiety reviews:
How your chronic illness can cause anxiety
Why you’re more likely to experience anxiety with a chronic illness
How therapy for chronic illness works
Coping tools for anxiety related to chronic illness
Why do you feel so anxious when you have a chronic illness?
Anxiety can be a common part of managing a chronic illness. Your brain learned that unpleasant sensations (symptoms) = danger. And at one time while that might have kept you safe, that connection just might not be needed anymore.
For example, if you’ve had a traumatic flare up in the past another flare up can re-trigger those feelings of panic.
Some examples of sensations related to chronic illness might include:
Racing heart
Difficulty breathing
Stomachache
Other uncomfortable or scary sensations
A flare up can send the message to your brain that your body is in danger or that something feels “unsafe” in your body.
That doesn’t mean it’s “all in your head” or “just anxiety”. It means your brain is responding the way we expect your brain to respond when it feels a disorienting or scary sensation.
Example of how your chronic illness can cause anxiety
As a therapist specializing in chronic illness and medical trauma, here’s why roller coasters are the perfect metaphor for chronic illness and how we can better understand how therapy for chronic illness and medical trauma actually works:
The sensation of feeling faint or your stomach dropping or muscle aches after being jostled around can feel like too much for your body
You know that you’re not actually unsafe in a roller coaster, but your body does not understand the difference
This is the challenge of managing anxiety with a chronic illness. When you find yourself re-triggered by scary sensations in your body, it can make it difficult to manage feelings of anxiety, shame, or fear that can accompany a chronic illness.
This is because flare ups in chronic illness are an expected part of managing an illness even when you know you’re safe. Experiencing a flare up does not necessarily mean you did something “wrong” to cause the flare up.
Therapy for chronic illness can help you feel safe through the ups and downs of a chronic illness that can make your anxiety worse.
How does therapy for chronic illness work?
Part of the question we ask in therapy for medical trauma or chronic illness if you have a chronic condition: Can you FEEL the sensation (pain, dizziness, etc) without the FEAR that used to come along with that symptom?
A therapist trained to work with chronic illness might ask you questions such as:
What are some of the sensations associated with your chronic illness that cause anxiety for you?
When you experience a symtpom of your chronic illness, what are the anxious thoughts that come up for your?
Where do you feel that anxiety in your body?
How long have you been experiencing these sensations/symptoms from your chronic illness?
What would be different about your life if you still felt pain without the fear that comes along with pain?
What you might work on in therapy for chronic illness:
Coping tools for anxiety related to your health
Building a support system to support you through a chronic illness
Role playing advocating for yourself at medical appointments
Accommodating yourself at home, work, or school
Coping tools for anxiety with chronic illness
Repeat to yourself during a flare up “Just because my body feels unsafe doesn’t mean I am unsafe”
Keep a list on your phone of safe people to reach out to for support during a flare up
Remind yourself that flare ups are temporary
Put ice on your neck, take a hot shower, or use a heating pad to promote muscle relaxation (depending on advice from your medical provider) and to add a different sensory experience
Imagine yourself in a different relaxing space such as by the water or your favorite calm space in your home
Tap your fingers lightly on different parts of your body to bring awareness to other parts of your body
Looking for a therapist that specializes in chronic illness?
My name is Victoria Rodriguez, PhD, LPC, and I specialize in working with chronic illness and medical trauma to help my clients feel safe in their bodies while managing health issues.
If you’re looking for support in managing all of the anxiety that can come along with a chronic illness, schedule your complimentary consultation here.
