It’s a fact of life that if we are lucky enough to age, our bodies will need more maintenance. That’s a whole new world of medical issues that we’ve never encountered before. Navigating the health system and finding the right treatment can be challenging: it’s frustrating, often painful, and it can be quite scary. It’s natural to want to get advice from friends who’ve gone through the same thing. However, don’t let it be the only thing you talk about for your sake, and for the sake of your relationships.
Setting A Boundary Made A Positive Difference
A good friend of mine was going through cancer treatment for the second time when she made an agreement with all of her friends. She wouldn’t talk to them about her health anymore. If there were updates that we all needed to know, she would send out an email, but otherwise, she didn’t want to talk about it.
I remember that her request felt jarring at first. We cared about her and wanted to support her through this crisis. But then, as we started to live with her new rule, something wonderful happened: our conversations filled with all the things that we enjoyed together.
Good For Your Relationships
When I considered it from her point of view, her boundary made a lot of sense. There is a dreadful weight that’s hard to get out from under, when each time a friend or acquaintance sees you they ask you about your surgery or treatments. Even if you weren’t thinking about your health for a minute, their question puts you right back into the emotional discomfort of addressing it. When this happens again and again, every day with every interaction, it adds to your health burden.
Good For Your Healing
You become your illness, when it’s all you talk about. You become the person getting the knee replacement or the person going through cancer treatment. On the one hand, it makes sense, medical procedures are taking a lot of your time and attention. This is a huge deal!
But, when every coffee with a friend becomes all about your medical issues, you’re missing the opportunity to take a break from them, and talk about the rest of life. This is the life you are aiming to return to full-time after you’ve finished with your treatments.
Don’t let the most interesting thing about you be your illness.
It matters to your healing to remind yourself of who you are apart from this health issue. It continues to strengthen your relationships by building on the interests that you share and enjoy together, rather than dwelling on your surgery.
It can be difficult to re-direct a group conversation that has become all about everyone’s illnesses. What’s your best advice for turning the conversation around? Comment below.
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