CFS And My Anger Problem

Anger is a pretty common emotion for people who have chronic illness. The most basic freedom that anyone can have, your health, is in some way gone and you feel it’s out of your control. For people with CFS it’s even worse because of the lack of awareness and having to deal with not just people but doctors that just don’t get it.

The CDC put their stamp of approval on CFS. It IS a real disease (the ridiculousness of having to prove you are sick has always infuriated me). CDC researchers also affirmed that some CFS sufferers are "as impaired as a whole as people with MS, as people with AIDS, as people undergoing chemotherapy for cancer."

Even though my health problems are largely severe allergies I still have much of the anger problem to deal with that’s left over from my years of having no validation of my incapacitating illness.

I would like to do a cartoon but I don’t have time so I’ll tell you what it would be. A patient is sitting in an exam room with a doctor explaining his symptoms and how he feels and the doctor is looking in some kind of manual like The Merck Manual of Diagnosis and Therapy that doctors use to find a diagnosis. And the doctor says, “Well you can’t have that because it’s not in here.”

That’s how ridiculous it has been for people with CFS, and trust me I still get the eye roll from some doctors who don’t believe CFS can literally cripple a person.

I have a pretty thick skin when it comes to a lot of different situations. Like I wouldn’t ever get upset if someone was late, or something was canceled or plans get changed. MY GOSH those kinds of things are so trivial compared to what I’ve been through.

But I do have a temper when it comes to any kind of injustice, drama, or unfairness of any kind. I hate to see or hear about people suffering. I was thinking about how unfair it is when you’re sick and you can’t work so you’re also broke and having to do without and scrape by. Talk about rubbing in the misery and suffering!

So what to do about anger (particularly because you feel trapped and don’t have the control that you once had)?

• Take control of your health by working hard on your recovery.

• Don’t assume that people know how you feel about things, be straightforward and simple in your explanation. For example if someone asks you to do something you can’t do say, “I wish I could but I’m not able to do things like that.”

• Ask people to call you or come over. Tell them you need them and you want to talk and be around people (DO talk about other things than illness though).

• BUT it is OK to talk about your illness, just not all the time, it's not good for you either. People used to tell me all the time that they knew someone with such and such and illness and how it was so much worse and that person sucked it up (basically stop talking because we don’t want to hear it sort of thing). But I would say, “I need to talk about it so that I can have some reality about it.”

• Don’t stop setting goals, reaching goals gives you a sense of mastery in your life. You may not be able to do the things you did before you got sick but there are still goals you can achieve now.

• Express your anger by telling people, “I feel really angry about that.” Find someone you can process your feelings safely, talk about it and let it go.

• Don’t obsess, it never ever helps to dwell on negativity.

• Mediate for 5 minutes a day.

• Do something spiritual (like read the Bible and pray, make a prayer journal).

It’s really not a bad thing to be honest about your feelings. I tell people all the time in conversation that I still feel very traumatized about my years of illness. Those memories are terrible, but today I’m making new good memories. I expect the bad ones to fade but they will always be there. In the mean time I'm working on my anger problem.