~ RE-DEFINING ONE'S LIFE ~

Tightening One's Belt - A Temporary Fix
Realizing What is Permanent

A major or chronic illness affects more than a person's physical body. 

At the beginning of illness / injury, there are the typical financial questions: What about my job? How will I pay my rent/house payment, utilities, car payment, etc.  The person may decide to cut back, "tighten the belt," as a plan to get through what is viewed as the temporary crisis.

Then, when the severity of the medical situation is recognized by the person, and the realization hits that this isn't a temporary situation, the person moves to a different step about their employment and financial identity.  By now, many of the original "cut-backs" in spending and personal wants have become permanent or semi-permanent.  While already dealing with sadness and worry about their medical situation, there is a new sadness and even bitterness over the financial changes in their life.

Quiet-Desperation

This becomes a time of a lot of re-structuring, in many different areas at once.  Mental and emotional adjustments must be made internally about the loss of the person's job and career.  Depending on different factors, like the person's personality and their emotional investment in their former career, this can be an intense time of pain, despair, questioning, and reflection about oneself.  There is anger over the losses, along with a quiet-despair in realizing one's body will NOT allow the person to do and perform previous activities and job.  

If you've always been an achievement-oriented person, one who has always set high personal goals in every area of your life, and one whose identify has been tied into a certain profession or job position, the quiet-despair is something that feels SO intense that one would think everyone should actually SEE it, FEEL it, SMELL it, TASTE it, and TOUCH it.  Quiet-despair seems palpable!  Yet, it isn't.  Most other people aren't even aware of the deep struggle going on inside of a person who  "just lost everything because" of a major illness or injury.  Most people don't understand if you try to explain where you are.  And that makes the quiet-despair feel even worse!  

NEXT...  Quiet Desperation