What is Chronic Illness? 

Chronic illness is a wide umbrella of illnesses that impact the quality of life and lived experiences of many people every day. They require long term care and present in each person differently. They impact mental health because they can lead to isolation, decreased access to necessary resources, and symptoms of depression, grief, anxiety, and anger. Many chronic illnesses are lifelong but only need to be present for three months to be considered chronic. Many people do not realize they struggle with this, specifically women, as women’s health is vastly under researched. Chronic illness can also include chronic pain, and wavering or mysterious symptoms. You do not need to have a diagnosis to come to therapy for chronic illness. 

What is Dynamic Disability?

Dynamic disability is the term being used to describe unsteady, unpredictable symptoms that are debilitating or disabling and impact the person’s otherwise “normal” ability to complete tasks. This might include the use of mobility aids, or accessibility accommodations as needed. The need fluctuates, and often it is unclear as to why. Many people find this unpredictability frustrating when they experience it. This type of disability comes with feelings of anger, grief and shame as well as isolation. Many people feel the sense of needing to constantly explain their disability to others or “prove” they are disabled.

What we do in session:

We work on understanding your relationship to your body. We allow room for grief and sadness and anger. We organize your thoughts and identify where you are being too hard on yourself. We make sure your appointments are organized, and discuss how to feel resourced in a medical setting so that you can feel confident talking to doctors and medical professionals about what you are feeling. We identify what hurts and how to talk about it. We process the emotional pain this journey has caused you.  We maneuver through the uncertainty of the diagnostic process. Where you are in your journey with this, you do not need to do it alone.

What this therapy journey can look like:

You feel warmth toward your body, even on the hard days. You can accept your bodily limitations without blaming your body. You feel strong talking to doctors about how you feel. You are able to do more of what you love in measured, resourced ways so you don’t have to feel so limited. You begin to take your life back and understand how to work with the illness/disability and not in conflict with it. 

A note on the diagnostic journey:

You DO NOT need to have a specific diagnosis to do this work. What you are experiencing is real and even if you do not have an answer as to what is causing it, we can explore how best to address the impact it is having on your mental wellbeing. I am not a doctor, and I cannot diagnose you. I can, however, support you as you work towards finding answers.

Maybe you relate: 

• You have dealt with mystery symptoms for a long time with no clear answers about why they are happening

• You feel as though your doctors don’t believe you when you say you are experiencing symptoms. 

• Getting ready to go to a medical appointment feels like gearing up for  battle. 

• You have a strong mistrust of the medical system 

• You experience symptoms that you can’t explain, despite your labs being normal. 

• You feel exhausted at the thought of having to socialize

• You find yourself having to accept bodily limitations that you didn’t have to face before 

• You feel resentment towards your body.

• You miss who you were before your body changed. 

• You long for the life you thought you’d have before. 

• You feel you always have to prove to others that you are “sick enough” 

• You have an invisible illness 

• People telling you that you don’t look sick doesn’t feel like a compliment. 

• You want to be connected to your body again but that feels impossible. 

Some of the Chronic Illnesses and Dynamic Disabilities I specialize in working with are:

• Endometriosis

• Adenomyosis

• PMOS (Formerly PCOS)

• Pelvic Pain

• Hypermobile Ehlers Danlos

• Mast Cell Activation Syndrome

• Lyme Disease & Other Tick-borne Illnesses

• Chronic Inflammation

• Long COVID and other COVID complications

• Autoimmune Diseases: Lupus, Diabetes, Multiple Sclerosis, Rheumatoid Arthritis, Fibromyalgia and many more

• Long-term cancer diagnoses

• Complications from surviving cancer