Chill! Rule No. 3: Relationships

Dealing With a Partner Who Doesn't Want to Deal With Your Illness

• If your lover doesn't deliver in the support department, weigh the good qualities. Hopefully they're substantial enough for you to have compassion for this soul who has no idea how to live with your illness, who perhaps even makes you wrong for it on occasion. We're all human, we've all been frail, broken, angry, confused, even the best of us. Find it in your heart to forgive - if you imagine that once you're healed, you'll still want that relationship. (You're going to have to find the strength to believe in it, even during low points when your lover wants to run because he or she can't deal. This assumes you are confident that the relationship overall is worth it.)

• At the height of my hell, I broke up with my boyfriend because we were having issues I could no longer discuss or even think about without my symptoms spiking in severity. Whatever he was telling me, I suspect the truth is he freaked out at my illness, as men tend to do when they see a strong woman fall and don't feel strong enough themselves to carry her...or factually aren't strong enough to even want to carry the woman they fell in love with. I then suffered a heavy heartbreak, so it's not like the breakup solved my stress level. Quite the opposite. After all, I knew this man is, at his core, made of TLC. He'd held my hair back when I was up all night vomiting, for goodness sake. He'd given me numerous massages, expecting nothing in return. He was freaking out at the fact my sickness wasn't going away, questioning everything, wondering if he'd be better off with a healthy woman instead of upholding his freely offered commitment to be with me "in sickness and in health" (offered before either of us knew I was sick). It might have served me better simply to decide not to care about him or us, to be completely willing to lose him if that was his intended end, to keep myself too busy with self-care activities like epsom salt baths (when I was strong enough to get in and out of the bathtub), clay masks (again, when I had the energy), good friends willing to visit me near work or at home (as opposed to going across town to see them), great music/books/films, my own creativity when I could physically and mentally manage it, and otherwise withdraw into my own world, as I did when he was first courting me because I was honestly busy and distracted. Ah, the hindsight is so easily instructed. Well, no time like the present to carry out tomorrow's hindsight. (That history often repeats itself doesn't mean I - or you - should.) 

• If you're in an honestly abusive relationship, or if it unnerves you too much that your lover can't be with you in your time of need and has never shown you tenderness when you're weak, get the hell out. No drama. Just leave. Be certain it's the right thing; be sure you won't regret it the next day, next week or next year! You will heal faster without the influence of someone who thinks you're faking it, lazy, hypochondriac, etc, or believes you'll never get better! If you honestly can't get out (kids, living situation), distance yourself as much as possible without turning into bitter psychodog. Be happy for what you have around that's good; put your attention on that, withdraw deep into your own world of peace enough so you have some extra to give those who might rob you of it. The world does not revolve around you, but yours does. Make it a good one, however you can. This is vital.

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