Comments on: Illness changes the rules http://workingwithchronicillness.com/2007/01/10/illness-changes-the-rules/ Sun, 12 Oct 2008 22:21:20 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.5 By: Diana http://workingwithchronicillness.com/2007/01/10/illness-changes-the-rules/#comment-31 Diana Fri, 19 Jan 2007 10:00:22 +0000 http://keepworkinggirlfriend.com/2007/01/10/illness-changes-the-rules/#comment-31 Hi Joan, "Discernment" is an excellent word choice for describing a key skill we must develop. Almost nothing that comes at me is clear. I appreciate your essay because it encouraged me to reflect on how my advocates and friends have shifted over time, sometimes cyclically: It has also been a learning process for them as well as my doctors. I am forced to align my decisions with my newly forged value set, and perhaps this reinforcement is a source of strength and the beginning of a sort of Phoenix process (though I am sure to crash and burn again!) I am coming through a very bad month during which I was essentially useless at work. But I want to keep my job, so I have to change my "rules" in accord with the limitations imposed by my illness. (But what continues to be unclear for me is the extent to which my illness versus my mind imposes. How "sick" am I really, and should I be pushing myself harder?) Many of my character weaknesses and fears (inability to meet deadlines, being hounded by people on voicemail and by email, suffering the unhappy looks from my employees, etc.) have been brought to the fore. For a while I felt as if I no longer had any dignity and could stoop no lower. For the first time in my life I am crafting a self-friendly environment and not worrying so much about what people think. To get going again, I am reduced to committing to a single work task each day, otherwise I become overwhelmed and subsequently paralyzed. But more than ever, I appreciate each "event" in my life because of the slow motion through which I experience it. The changes for me due to my illness have (sometimes serious) ramifications for the people associated with me at work. I've found that developing discernment is critical for me in moving back into the flow of life, but it is critical for my co-workers, too, in receiving me. Diana Hi Joan,
“Discernment” is an excellent word choice for describing a key skill we must develop. Almost nothing that comes at me is clear. I appreciate your essay because it encouraged me to reflect on how my advocates and friends have shifted over time, sometimes cyclically: It has also been a learning process for them as well as my doctors. I am forced to align my decisions with my newly forged value set, and perhaps this reinforcement is a source of strength and the beginning of a sort of Phoenix process (though I am sure to crash and burn again!)

I am coming through a very bad month during which I was essentially useless at work. But I want to keep my job, so I have to change my “rules” in accord with the limitations imposed by my illness. (But what continues to be unclear for me is the extent to which my illness versus my mind imposes. How “sick” am I really, and should I be pushing myself harder?) Many of my character weaknesses and fears (inability to meet deadlines, being hounded by people on voicemail and by email, suffering the unhappy looks from my employees, etc.) have been brought to the fore. For a while I felt as if I no longer had any dignity and could stoop no lower. For the first time in my life I am crafting a self-friendly environment and not worrying so much about what people think.

To get going again, I am reduced to committing to a single work task each day, otherwise I become overwhelmed and subsequently paralyzed. But more than ever, I appreciate each “event” in my life because of the slow motion through which I experience it. The changes for me due to my illness have (sometimes serious) ramifications for the people associated with me at work. I’ve found that developing discernment is critical for me in moving back into the flow of life, but it is critical for my co-workers, too, in receiving me.
Diana

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