Chronic Illness: Better Prepared to Handle Social Distancing or Overwhelmed Enough as it Is?

I was thinking a lot about how those of us with chronic illnesses have had to socially distance ourselves for one reason or another over the course of time. It got me thinking. In some ways, we are more prepared for the social distancing of COVID19. However, in other ways, we are already stretched thin and the added difficulties arising from Coronavirus could overwhelm us and put us over our tipping point.

So I asked myself, “Are we better prepared for social distancing than our non-chronically ill neighbors or are we isolated enough and overwhelmed as it is?” I’m still not sure, but here are some of the things that weighed in:

How We are More Prepared:

• Those of us dealing with chronic illness may be more prepared for being socially distant because we are used to it.
• We have all kinds of different limitations (health/mobility/solitude),
• We are used to relying upon other people
• used to relying upon God

How we are already overwhelmed:

• Now those once a week activities that helped keep us sane are gone.
• The people we used to rely upon are no longer able to visit
• Now others are also now relying upon us more such as our children and spouses since they are home all day.
• Our limitations may be the thing that broke the camel’s back to overwhelmed.
• Now with so much out of our control, we feel like too much is out of our control: overwhelmed.

What about you? Do you feel more or less able to handle the COVID19 social distancing?