Super Optimism And Coping With Chronic Illness

One of the basic coping strategies with living with chronic debilitating illness is the psychological well-being of the sufferer. After medications have been administered, lifestyle changes sought and support given by friends and family, there is a need to reach deep within. There is a need to tap into whatever shred of optimism or positivity you have and find ways and means to multiply it exponentially. For this will be the difference between living a life, and merely existing.
In my personal experience, nothing has ever dehumanised me as finding myself with physical incapacity and needing assistance from others. Nothing has made me feel more humiliated  than being forced by my disabilities, to adopt a strange and often abnormally slow gait as I struggled to move from one place to the other. There is no faster way of knowing what the sum total of humanity with all its foibles and vanity really is.

After I joined a support group, I met many people who's conditions were far worse than mine was. Some were born with disability, and have not known any other way of living. Some like me had it foisted on them at some point in their lives. Many are the bravest people I know, and I was inspired to keep fighting. Their optimism was a strong common denominator, and this resonated with mine.

However, rising above the base level of the emotional and psychological difficulties that dis ability engenders, is  the only way to ensure longevity. Choosing to live, and literally focussing on living joyfully 'in spite' of disability is crucial to survival.
Some call it super optimism , what ever it is called, this is what I needed and finding it has given me great freedoms.