Finding yourself with a diagnosis that baffles friends, family, and even your health team feels like getting served a double whammy. Your daily goal is to manage your symptoms, but becoming the educator about your diagnosis brings with it responsibility and pressure that easily steps in the way of self-care.
Taking on the role of educator is exhausting and even more taxing is the role of having to *prove* that a diagnosis is real.
The other day I was told about a person with a chronic pain diagnosis who had found peace by writing her memoir. She detailed her diagnosis in this intimate portrait that didn't rely upon medical jargon. Instead, she voiced his pain as a personal experience and relieved the internal desire, as well as the external pressure to "make sense" of the diagnosis.
In writing about her experience from a day to day perspective, she was able to alleviate herself of the power that the diagnosis had once had over her. Its presence had formerly demanded that she educate, prove, and define the diagnosis. Now, as the voice of her pain, she had regained control of the diagnosis; it no longer controlled her.