A chronic condition like diabetes, lupus, arthritis or brain fog is a lot to handle on its own. Doctor appointments, pill bottles, physical therapy and more might be your new normal.
So it’s not surprising that long term physical conditions can spawn mental health concerns.
“You can no longer do the things you used to do. Sometimes you can no longer work. Your identity is affected. That causes feelings of depression,” says Lea Anne Varble, a clinical psychotherapist who runs a chronic illness support group at OSF HealthCare in Alton, Illinois. “There’s also anxiety. People with certain illnesses get very anxious when they leave the house. They don’t know how it’s going to affect them in an hour.”
Luckily, Varble and other mental health professionals have ways that you and your loved ones can make the best of the situation and find the right balance of help and independence.
In one-on-one therapy, Varble says you’ll talk about making changes to your thoughts and actions to improve your mood.
“What you think determines how you feel, and how you feel determines your behavior,” Varble sums it up. “So if we can change the way someone is thinking about something, many times it changes how they feel about it. And then it changes how they address it and behave toward it.”
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