Finding Myself Again Through Chronic Illness

I’ve been on a journey these last six years, a long, exhausting, and painful downward spiral with my health. When I look back, it feels like I’ve been living in survival mode, just trying to get through each day. Along the way, I lost so much of myself.

Now I’m slowly trying to find myself again. And here’s the truth: I know I’ll never be the same. My body won’t be the same, my energy won’t be the same, and the version of my life I used to dream about, that’s gone. My whole world has been flipped upside down, and my family’s right along with it. It’s not just me living with this illness, it’s them too.

But one thing that’s been constant through all the chaos, through all the pain and loss, is my family and my friends. They’ve been there for me, over and over again. They’ve seen me at my absolute lowest, they’ve held me up when I couldn’t stand, they’ve loved me even when I didn’t feel like myself. And even though I can’t show up for them the way I used to, not with the energy, not with the presence, not with the ability to do everything I once did, I still try. I give what I can, when I can. And I remind myself that even if it doesn’t look like it used to, it still matters.

The thing about chronic illness is that it changes every single part of your life. Not just your body. Your mind changes, your thoughts shift, your mental health takes hit after hit. You wake up one day and realise your walk has changed, your face looks different, your hair has thinned, and your entire reflection is a stranger. It’s devastating. It’s like watching yourself disappear in slow motion.

And in that, you really do lose yourself. You lose the old version of who you thought you were. You grieve not just the life you had, but the person you were in it. People say you “come to terms” with it, but honestly? You never truly do. You’re just forced into a kind of acceptance. A survival acceptance. You learn to live inside this new body, this new reality. And then you try, and I mean really try, to find a kind of peace with it. But it’s not simple. It’s never simple. Even when you’ve made peace in your mind, your body still screams with pain, and you’re reminded daily that this isn’t something you can just move on from.

This past week was my birthday. And I spent it with my friends and my family, and honestly, it did something for me. It reminded me of what I still have. I sat there, in agony, yes, in pain that felt like it was carving into me, but at the same time, I had these flashes of normal. Just little moments: sitting around the table, laughing at stupid jokes, talking about old memories, telling stories. For those moments, I felt like me again. The old me. Not the sick me, not the broken me, just me. And that feeling was everything.

Those moments gave me hope. Real hope. Because for so long I’ve felt like I’ve been fighting just to exist, fighting to find myself again, fighting to not disappear completely into this illness. And in those simple, ordinary moments, I realised that maybe I haven’t lost myself completely. Maybe I am still here. Maybe I’ve been here all along, just buried under the weight of all of this.

So as I look forward, I know my illnesses are going to progress. I know there will be more struggle, more pain, more hard days. But I also know that I’m still me. And that even in the middle of all the suffering, there are still moments of joy, of laughter, of connection. There are still pieces of normal. And those pieces matter more than I ever understood before.

Finding myself again isn’t about getting back to who I was before I got sick. That version of me is gone, and I’ve accepted that. It’s about holding on to the core of who I am, letting myself shine through even when my body won’t cooperate, even when my mind feels heavy, even when everything hurts. It’s about building a new version of myself that can live alongside the illness instead of always being swallowed by it.

And that’s what gives me hope, that I can remain myself, even as everything else changes. That I can keep finding those moments, those little flashes of normal, and hold on to them as proof that I’m still here. That I’m still me.

About me

I am a married mother of four children. One of those four children is our granddaughter, for whom we are SGO (legal guardians)/kinship carers. I run a small business and enjoy writing, so I blog. My blog focuses on my family life as well as my experiences of living with chronic illnesses and disabilities such as ME/CFS, spinal stenosis, chronic pain, and fibromyalgia.  Oh, and I am only in my mid-40s.