“Am I Living, or Am I Dying?”
While illness and death may be universal phenomena, there are no universals when it comes to how to handle them — each individual will handle their diagnosis differently, just as each body will respond in a unique way. But there are common themes and challenges that come up.
Who am I? What do I do with myself now? It’s both an existential question and a very practical one, a window into your attitude as well as your health. The answer, unsatisfyingly, is that you’re both. We’re always living and dying. Every day, even in the healthiest body, innumerable cells die. Symbolic deaths, in the form of losses, pile up. Jobs, relationships, pounds, glasses — some things we lose intentionally, others feel as though they were ripped away. Every moment that passes brings us closer to death. But this may sound too flip to be helpful if you haven’t made a long habit of thinking this way. However you get there, an ability to hold both notions at the same time comes in handy and will allow you to stay closest to the full reality of your situation.
On the practical side, you can let your answer to this question — am I living or dying? — inform choices you need to make. You may find yourself feeling like life is already over and you’re just waiting around to die. That refrain is usually grief talking, or depression, or boredom. Some people really are done before their body is — a kind of purgatory. Sometimes the effects of aggressive treatments register only as prolonging your suffering, not really helping you live. Your answer may also be telling you that you need more support.
All of this points to the utility of forging a relationship with your illness, and there are many ways to do this. Over the first few years of Andrea’s experience with cancer, for example, she battled it, and that approach served her very well. It was a source of energy and strength for a time, but war is exhausting and eventually her own language and constructs hurt her spirit more than they helped. So, she shifted into a different mode, sidling up to her illness — a part of her — instead of hating it as an invader.
She eventually came to give her illness a name: Gus. She found a toy made of yarn that looks something like a goblin with a blue heart embroidered on it. She keeps it in her purse and even talks to it — cheering when the tumors shrink and scolding when they grow. She’s careful to point out that they’re not friends, but where once she was “disgusted” by her disease, this “parasitic invader,” she now feels for it — can relate to it in a way.
This may sound like cozying up to something you loathe, but I’m sure many of the readers who are living with any chronic illness will recognize the relief and wisdom that come from relating to that thing that does not leave you. It’s exhausting fighting yourself all the time. Gus allows her to be with her disease while also being more than it. This approach serves her better now. Even with death some day, she will not have “lost the war.”
This is a question about your identity more than diagnosis. However you go about it, forging some sort of relationship with your illness is a key way to keep your sense of self throughout. If you can somehow fold the diagnosis and what it portends into how you see yourself in the world — your identity — you will be less flummoxed and more inspired by the question of living versus dying.
Read more about Andrea and Gus: https://gusproject.com/
