You are more than your diagnosis.
Therapy For Chronic Illness In Duluth, GA
In-person in Duluth, GA & online throughout the US
Do you feel like your life is controlled by your chronic illness?
You're tired of having to constantly advocate for yourself when dealing with doctors who invalidate your experience.
You're stressed out by everything you have to do to take care of yourself.
You're worrying about what your diagnosis means for you in the long term.
You find yourself paralyzed with anxiety every time you have a flare up.
Your life has been turned upside down by your diagnosis, and it feels like so much has been taken away from you.
You feel like a burden for needing so much help from the people in your life.
You've experienced medical trauma from having to go through difficult and painful medical procedures on a regular basis.
Chronic illness can affect every part of your life, causing you to:
Try to keep up with work, home, and school obligations, knowing it might trigger a flare-up
Deal with the medical establishment on a regular basis and feel like a professional patient
Lose friends and acquaintances because of your inability to show up the way you want to in relationships
Feel isolated and alone because the people around you don't truly understand what you are going through
Not want to ask for help from your spouse or partner even when it's needed because you're afraid of being seen as a burden
How Therapy For Chronic Illness Can Help You
Living with a chronic illness can turn your whole world upside down. Therapy can help you start to feel more like yourself again. You can feel less overwhelmed by the emotional weight of your diagnosis, more confident in speaking up for yourself, and less alone in dealing with your experience. You don't have to navigate this perfectly or by yourself. Together, we'll process both the practical and emotional sides of living with chronic illness, while you receive active feedback and practical tools tailored to your specific situation.
In therapy you’ll learn to:
Cope with your symptoms and become a stronger self-advocate
Finally getting an accurate diagnosis to explain your symptoms can be both a relief and can feel extremely overwhelming. It may answer some questions, but open up a whole bunch of other ones. Therapy will help you adjust to your diagnosis and help you learn to advocate for yourself within the medical system when it comes to receiving treatment.
Manage your stress to reduce flare- ups
Although flare-ups can occur out of the blue, it has been shown that for many illnesses, stress can play a role in the frequency and severity of flare-ups. In therapy, we will work on stress management and relaxation techniques. This will decrease the frequency of your flare-ups and make them less severe when they do occur.
Ask for help without feeling like a burden
One of the hardest adjustments after being diagnosed with a chronic illness is getting used to having to ask for help from other people. If you were a pretty independent person before, this is particularly difficult. In therapy, we will work on strategies for asking for help without feeling guilty or as if you are burden on others, and how to accept help gracefully.
Here’s what’s possible for you:
Feel more in control of your day-to-day life
Trust your own experience and advocate for yourself
Process the grief of your diagnosis
Reach out to others when help is needed without doubting yourself or feeling guilty
Decrease stress-induced flare-ups
You don’t have to face this alone.
Common questions about chronic illness therapy
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For therapy sessions we will either meet online or in my office in Duluth, GA. In general, during therapy sessions we will talk about the issues that you are struggling with and focus on understanding both where these issues come from and ways that you can cope with your situation. We will discuss what you can do to decrease your symptoms and how you can improve your relationships. I take an active role in therapy sessions, meaning that I talk frequently and often provide feedback.
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What you are physically experiencing is definitely real and is not just all in your head. However, having to deal with a chronic illness can often lead to other problems such as anxiety and depression. Therapy can help you cope with the emotional difficulties that having a chronic illness can cause. Participating in therapy can also reduce the chances that emotional problems will cause your physical symptoms to get worse.
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This is why teletherapy can be so useful for certain clients. It allows you to meet with me from the comfort of your own home without having to get ready, drive to an appointment, potentially sit in an uncomfortable position for 50 minutes, and then drive home. With teletherapy, you can stay in bed and still have your therapy session, staying as comfortable as possible and still getting the benefits of therapy.
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Therapy is an investment, not only of money, but also of time and energy. My guess is that you’ve tried other things to improve your life, but that these things haven’t helped. Often people have been struggling for a long time, and have lost years of their life to their symptoms. It can be worth it to meet with a chronic illness therapist who has been helping people for many years to see how much you may be able to improve with treatment.
Begin therapy for chronic illness in Duluth, GA
You don’t have to keep dealing with your chronic illness on your own. Therapy can provide you with support and coping skills to deal with the effects of your illness. As a chronic illness therapist, I specialize in helping individuals with chronic illness to live their best lives. To start your therapy journey, follow these simple steps:
Click the Schedule Free Consultation button below.
Book a free, 15 minute video consultation with me to talk more about what you are looking for from therapy and to ask me any questions you have for me about the process.
Schedule your first therapy session to start learning how you can reduce flare ups and improve your outlook on your situation.
