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Dealing with a chronic condition daily is stressful.

Your disease may influence every facet of your life, to the point that managing it will feel like a full-time job in addition to the other challenges you face.

Even when you have come to terms with your diagnosis, it will be challenging for you to find a way to deal with the unpredictability of day-to-day life and the lack of clarity regarding your own future. It does not take much to push someone suffering from a chronic condition “over the edge,” since the disease may overwhelm you on all fronts, including socially, cognitively, emotionally, and physically, and it takes a significant toll on your health and wellness. Even if you can keep your condition under control on most days, there may be times when it will push you to the breaking point, causing you to go from being overwhelmed but still able to function to being completely incapacitated by it.

Create a list of your concerns and arrange them in descending order of importance.

When you are experiencing feelings of overload, everything may seem like a catastrophe – to the point that you feel like you are unable to cope with anything at all. When this happens, taking a step back and assessing your situation is important. However, a higher sense of urgency is required for certain initiatives than others. Create a list of your concerns and rank them according to their level of importance from most important to least important. You should decide to focus on solving only one problem at a time and to finish as many things as you can while maintaining this approach. You may require something like physiotherapy to help manage your condition if it is physical. If this is a potential avenue for you, you might want to Check out CARESPACE for physiotherapy in Kitchener Waterloo Ontario, or look into a clinic within your location, so you can get the targeted help that you need.

Keep a journal of your feelings and thoughts.

Some people feel more comfortable expressing their feelings more sequentially, such as by writing them down in a diary or journal. If you are becoming overwhelmed, have a notepad in your bag or open the notes app on your phone and jot down a few bullet points that you may return to later.

Research

You feel like you are drowning in a sea of problems because you do not fully grasp what is going on inside of you and with your body. It may help you feel more in control and comfortable if you educate yourself about your disease and therapies. Perhaps you could learn more about various items that could assist. However, you should impose some sort of restriction on yourself since it is very easy to get lost down an infinite rabbit hole of research and, as a consequence, to experience knowledge overload. When you are looking at, for example, Parkinson’s disease research, make sure it is on reputable websites.

Talk to someone

If you choose to manage your condition on your own, the experience of living with a chronic illness may be lonely and taxing on your body and mind. Get together with a buddy for coffee, take your kid out for a walk in the evening, call your parents, or send a quick text to a loved one to let them know you are thinking about them and want to connect with them.

Being in the company of others with the same disease as you or who are going through an experience comparable to what you are going through may be quite helpful, and this is true regardless of whether you meet them in person or online. You may find it easier to manage uncomfortable feelings if you are aware that other people have experienced similar challenges in the past and can see how those people overcame those challenges.

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