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What You Can Do For a Friend with a Chronic Illness
Practical Advice and a Poem
As always, the poem is at the bottom of this article.
Chronic illness can make relationships of any kind all the more difficult. Endometriosis is a great example of a chronic illness that changes relationships dramatically. I have a post on the basics of Endometriosis, called Have You Heard of This Common Disease? This article is a great place to start, whether you have Endo or you love someone with Endo. This article is to show what it is like to love others when dealing with Endometriosis. The unfortunate reality is that your relationships will forever be changed by chronic illness and disability, but some of these changes can be for the better.
Having Endometriosis can make all kinds of relationships difficult — romantic, platonic, or even familial. There are countless factors and ways that our relationships change due to Endometriosis. Most everyone I know with Endo has had a relationship, or multiple, change due to this disease. So many of my relationships changed when I got sick. For years, I blamed myself rather than the very real disease growing inside of me. Blaming myself meant I was never tackling the right issue; I didn’t need to find a way to hide my Endo, I needed support and love. Without those things, I was not able to cope.
