Hi, friends! Dealing with one chronic illness and its symptoms can be hard enough. But when you throw in the need to juggle multiple chronic illnesses and their symptoms at once, it’s even more challenging. I typically handle living with my chronic conditions well — at least mentally — but even I have bad mental health days now and then. This is also called chronic illness burnout. Can you relate? Read on to see how I deal with it.
For me, a trigger for chronic illness burnout is when too many symptoms or conditions flare up at once or I have too many doctor’s appointments to attend. It makes me feel overwhelmed, frustrated, sad, sorry for myself, and just plain sick of being sick. It’s the perfect storm to derail my mental health. (But hey, a gentle reminder here: It’s OK that this happens. We all have bad days and we’re allowed to have them.)
However, I don’t want to stay stuck in that negative mindset. I want to be able to acknowledge and accept that I’m having a bad day and feeling burnt out (Affirmation: This isn’t my baseline.). Then I want to be able to move forward and live my life, which includes doing what I need to in order to nourish my body and help it recover back to baseline.
To help manage the feelings of being overwhelmed (How am I going to take care of myself when all of this is bothering me?! It’s too much! Ah!), I’ve decided to create a checklist of things I’ve done before to successfully manage different symptoms or conditions I live with. To go along with that, I’ll also make a toolkit full of items that help me take care of myself and feel better. This toolkit, which I’ll call survival toolkits on my blog, can be something to keep at home. Or you can have a smaller, travel-sized version for when you’re out and about.
I originally got the idea for this checklist after I experienced a flare-up of an old, painful issue. That was on top of the POTS symptoms I’m still dealing with and before I dealt with an obstructed kidney stone and gallbladder surgery. By the time the latter two things happened, I hit a wall and felt very overwhelmed.
By everything.
I was so overwhelmed I didn’t know what to do. I actually broke down crying when I learned that endometriosis could be a contributing factor to why my ureter had been so closed up. But having my chronic illness checklist ready took some of that deep overwhelm away. Know why? Because at least I had a plan. At least I had a list of things that worked well for me before, so I could use that list and focus on one thing at a time.
My hope is that these tools will help me whenever I’m feeling burned out and overwhelmed by living with multiple conditions. If you also struggle with similar feelings, I’d encourage you to give this a try, too.
I’ll throw in an example of a checklist I made that is quickly becoming my chronic illness cheat sheet. I decided to make one comprehensive list of all the conditions and symptoms I deal with (whether chronic or acute), but you can break them up by condition if you prefer. There are no real rules here!
Note: This isn’t my full list that I keep in a note on my phone — the whole thing is actually much longer! This is just meant to serve as an example of what your list can look like. And you don’t have to keep it on your phone either. You can write it down in a journal or create a document to print out. Get creative with it!
If you use any specific products to manage your symptoms, it’s a good idea to stock up on them so they’re available when you need them. That’s where the idea of a chronic illness survival kit comes into play. You can call it whatever you want. But as long as you have a stash of helpful products somewhere accessible, that’s all that matters!
If you need some inspiration for items to add to your POTS survival toolkit, you might want to check out my top products for POTS page. I’m thinking of adding other product resource pages dedicated to other conditions I manage as well, so stay tuned for that in the future.
Remember, the whole point of doing this exercise is to help you feel less overwhelmed when chronic illness begins to feel like too much. If you’re anything like me, when this happens, I don’t know where to start or which symptom to tackle first. But this checklist is meant to be a guide full of reminders of what you’ve done before to manage symptoms. In turn, having something tangible in front of you, telling you exactly what to do, can dampen those overwhelming feelings.
So start with one symptom and do what your list recommends. Then, tackle the next symptom. Then the next, and so on and so forth. You get the idea, right?
You might also consider having a list of self-care activities you enjoy or a kit reserved especially for your self-care essentials. For me, that often involves lighting a candle, settling down with a book and a drink (herbal tea or seltzer water), giving myself a facial or at-home spa treatment, or taking a bubble bath with lavender-scented epsom salt. So I always make sure I have those items on hand, too. And some tasty snacks. Snacks are always good!
Chances are, chronic illness burnout will likely hit us all at some point on our journeys with chronic conditions. We’re only human! But it can leave us feeling overwhelmed, exhausted, and unsure of where to go from there. That’s why having a checklist and survival kit all ready to go can help make things a little easier during tough times.
But above all, try to remember to give yourself grace and love whenever you’re going through too much with your health. Take a deep breath, take some time for yourself to feel all the feelings, and when you’re ready, turn to your chronic illness checklist and survival kits. You might even find that simply having these resources helps to lessen the feelings of overwhelm and chronic illness burnout you have, whenever they crop up.
Take care of yourselves today (and every day after). Until next time!
XO,
Laurie
