When Your Body Becomes Part of the Story: Living with Physical Health Challenges

Physical health challenges (for example chronic illness, chronic pain, serious diagnosis, or the long aftermath of a health event) affect more than the body. They affect identity, relationships, work, and the fundamental sense of what life and one’s future may look like and what can be expected from both. The psychological dimensions of living with a physical health condition are significant, and they are often beyond the focus of medical care.

 

The identity disruption of illness

A significant physical health condition can have an unexpected and multifaceted impact on the self. When you understand yourself as capable, independent, and physically reliable, ill health can undermine those certainties. A body which was previously doing its thing in the background suddenly becomes increasingly into focus: something to be managed, attended to, negotiated with, and scrutinised by ourselves and the medical community. That shift in our relationships with our bodies is a significant psychological event which tends to arrive without a map.

The future can suddenly feel less certain. A serious diagnosis or a chronic condition often pushes us to renegotiate what life might look or feel like moving forward. We may have to rethink plans that we have made, or the version of the future that had been assumed. That process involves loss and grief.

 

The relational impact

Physical health challenges affect relationships in many unspoken ways. The person who is impacted may struggle with dependence, with guilt about the burden they perceive themselves to be placing on others, with the difficulty of asking for support from people who may themselves be struggling to know how to give it.

Partners and family members may be carrying their own fear and grief while trying to remain supportive. Spaces for honest conversation about what everyone is actually experiencing tend to be limited.

 

Communication, closeness and intimacy may all be impacted.

The mental health connection

The relationship between physical and mental health travels in both directions simultaneously. For example, chronic illness significantly increases the risk of depression and anxiety. This is not just because of the psychological reaction to difficult circumstances. It can also be through physiological mechanisms involving inflammation, pain, sleep disruption, and the neurological effects of sustained stress. It makes sense then that treating the mental health dimension of physical illness should be a part of comprehensive care.

 

What therapy can offer

Therapy alongside a physical health difficulty is not simply about finding acceptance and definitely isn’t about ‘looking on the bright side’. It is about having a space in which the full reality of your experience can be held: grief, fear, loneliness, frustration, anger, identity questions, relational strain, and whatever else might be present.

Therapy can also offer practical support in navigating the psychological demands of a medical system that tends to focus on the body while leaving the emotional experience of the journey, to the individual.

If you are living with a physical health condition and finding the psychological side of things more difficult than expected, therapy may offer a safe space to unpack what you are experiencing.

Dr Erin Reid is a counselling psychologist offering online therapy to individuals, couples, adolescents, and families across the UK and internationally, and 'Walk and Talk' therapy in North West London green spaces. Visit drerinreid.com to find out more.