5 Ways To Be A Good Friend To A Friend With A Chronic Illness

I have been coping with a chronic illness since I was 14 (that's nearly 16 years for me).  Sometimes people ask what they can do to be supportive.  I appreciate when a friend is thoughtful and shows that they care.  I thought I would share some of the ways my friends have helped me in the past 15 years of coping with my illness.

Coping With Chronic Illness - Other People Have Problems Too

Everything seems to be hard for me and requires a lot of thought and planning.  For goodness sake, washing my hair requires a plan of action and plenty of time afterward to rest.  Because everything is harder and requires more thought it is easy to become self -centered, focusing only on what I need and want, thinking only about what is happening to me.  

Also, illness often brings isolation.  Keeping my own company so much makes it easy to think only of myself.   

One problem with being too concerned with ME  is that I tend to downplay other people’s problems.  I never think they are as bad or important as mine.  This is simply untrue and unfair.  Their problems are usually just as valid and often very painful and frustrating.   

Coping with Chronic Illness - You Do Not Need to Justify Your Existence

Coping With Chronic Illness - You Don't Need to Justify

“Never make excuses.  Your friends won’t need them and your foes won’t believe them.”  -Wooden

With some of my old friends I always had to excuse myself for being ill.  I had to say I was sorry to them over and over for something that wasn’t my fault.  And it made me angry. 

Friendship Is a Basic Human Need Part 4 - How to be a Good Friend to a Friend Who is Chronically Ill

This post is in response to a reader question, which I loved.  Jo, from All The Blue Day, asked how to be a good friend to a person who has a chronic illness. 

If you know someone with a chronic illness it may be difficult to figure out what to say or what to do to help.  Ultimately, knowing that you genuinely care is the most important thing.  Don’t hold back from them just because you are afraid of saying the wrong thing.  But, these are some basic ideas that it would be good to consider.  (These are good suggestions whether they are a new acquaintance or an old friend.)

Keep in mind:  This list may seem long, but the suggestions are not very hard.  You are probably already doing several of these things.  Either way, just try to incorporate one suggestion at a time.  

Part 3 - Friendship Is A Basic Human Need (10 Ways To Be A Good Friend When Chronically Ill)

Initiate contact when you can.

It is just as important to be a good friend as it is to have a good friend.  But having a chronic illness can make this difficult for us.
It’s important to be the sort of friend you want to have – loyal, trustworthy, empathetic, supportive. 
 But, we are talking about something more focused and basic today.  We are talking about how to keep up social contacts and friendships while coping with serious illness.
It is easy (at least for me, both an introvert and chronically ill) to isolate myself and make other people do all the work of keeping in contact.  But, to be a good friend I have to do my share.  So this is my plan of action.  It is good at various stages of illness.

Plan to be a good friend while chronically ill:

Part 2 - Friendship is a Basic Human Need - (Who Can be a "Friend")

Studies show that social contact is actually a basic human need.  Lack of it can increase rate of mortality.  Enough of it can improve our health.  So, we actually need friends like we need food.  We may need them even more now that it is a little harder for us to make and keep them.

Different kinds of friends:

•    An acquaintance.
•    An ally or comrade.  Someone you are allied with in a struggle or cause.
•    A person you know well and whom you love, and feel loyalty toward.
•    Someone you can talk to freely about anything.  Someone you can call anytime.
•    Someone sticking closer than a brother.

I have friends in most of these categories – from acquaintances I like but see only now and then to those sticking closer than a brother.  Being ill, it can be hard to make friends of any variety.    But sometimes we make it harder than it has to be.  Sometimes we set too many restrictions on who we believe our friends are.  We might overlook what may be under our nose or what we may already have.  Over the past 15 years of being ill I have learned to rethink who can be my friend. 

Part 1 - Friendship Is A Basic Human Need (The Dilemma)

Personally I know what it is like to lose friends because of my illness. 

Chronic illness can lead to social isolation.

I want to be clear, they weren’t bad people.  But they didn’t understand.  And they didn't really care.   We weren’t going the same direction or at the same speed now.   

 And for me, the friendships were frustrating.  I couldn’t keep up, so I wound up making a lot of excuses.  Then I would push too hard to be with them because I was afraid of losing the friendship.  And then I would have a relapse.  I wound up covering over my illness all the time.  And, what I did explain to them they didn’t really believe.  Not really.  They thought I was faking or attention seeking.  Or they thought I was worthless.  

Closeness cannot continue (at least for me) under these circumstances.  

Now here is the dilemma.  Studies show that there is a very strong link between social isolation and mortality.  One researcher says it is as strong as the relationship between smoking and mortality.  On the flip side, they have proven that social contact improves our health.  The bottom line is: We need Friends.