The Chronic Illness Therapist

The Chronic Illness Therapist - Coaching Services: monthly memberships for folks with chronic health conditions
- Counseling Services: Therapy Intensives for residents of GA, FL, and CO

06/02/2026

Our individualism is worse than any chronic illness I’ve ever seen, and I’ve seen a lot of them as a chronic illness therapist.

Our country believes that struggling alone is a sign of strength, and asking for help is viewed as weakness. As “annoying.”

There’s literally no other blueprint that many of us know. So we follow this one.

We continue to lose energy, function, plans, identity, relationships. And we see this as inevitable.

But it’s not inevitable.

The research is clear: social isolation worsens pain, fatigue, and disease outcomes. Connection isn’t a luxury for people living with chronic illness. It can’t be, because it’s a necessity. It’s medicine.

When we handle our complex illnesses in isolation because we’ve been taught that’s what the morally correct way of being is, we contribute to the erosion of trust in our fellow humans.

And right now, in this political climate, we need trust more than ever.

So when I say our individualism is making us sicker… I mean that literally.

What’s one way you’ve felt the cost of going it alone with your health? 👇

Conversations about symptoms and appointments and treatment decisions can start to take up all the air in the room. The ...
05/27/2026

Conversations about symptoms and appointments and treatment decisions can start to take up all the air in the room. The person who's sick can start to feel like a problem to be solved instead of a person to be loved. And the partner can start to feel like there's no version of the relationship that isn't about caregiving.

This might sound too simple, but creating containers for the hard conversations can change everything.

Pick a time. Maybe it's Sunday at dinner and Wednesday morning before work. You talk about all of it then. Outside that container, you intentionally turn toward the next thing, whether that's joy or connection or just watching a dumb show together.

Your nervous system gets to know there's a space for the heavy stuff AND there's space for the rest of your life. ✨

Bonus: practicing consent outside the sexual context. Asking, "Do you have the capacity to talk about this right now?" before launching in. That little pause can be so important.

Share this with the partner who might benefit from trying this with you.

Listen to the full conversation with on the latest episode of The Chronic Illness Therapist Podcast.🎙

Not medical advice, just one chronically ill counselor sharing what I've learned about the mind-body connection.

05/27/2026

Just reminding everyone that healing takes time and it takes a multifaceted approach. “Retraining your nervous system” isn’t the blueprint. It’s not the roadmap. It’s a milestone that happens along the way.

Idk how else to say this, but I’ll keep figuring out how to find my words the more I post.

when you heal neuroplastically, it’s not because you finally “did the right thing.” It’s a cumulation of all the things you did before now.

Chronic illness doesn't just affect you. It moves into your relationship and sets up camp. (Read more 👇)As a licensed co...
05/25/2026

Chronic illness doesn't just affect you. It moves into your relationship and sets up camp. (Read more 👇)

As a licensed counselor living with and specializing in chronic illness, I see this play out constantly — and almost none of it is talked about honestly.

It's not that you love your partner less. It's that illness changes the dynamics in ways nobody warned you about.

You start managing shame around needing help.

You brace for feedback before it even comes.

You grip tighter when everything else feels out of control.

And sometimes you're doing all of that while your partner still hasn't taken the time to understand what you're actually living with.

None of this makes you a problem. It makes you human, navigating something really hard without a roadmap.

The goal of working through these issues is to help you understand what's happening beneath these patterns so you can actually have the relationship you want — one that doesn't require you to shrink or perform or explain yourself into exhaustion.

If any of this landed, my free guide was made for exactly this. 👇

Comment "6WAYS" below and I'll send you: 6 Ways To Help Your Partner Better Understand Your Chronic Illness.

What's the hardest part of navigating relationships while managing a chronic illness? Tell me in the comments 👇 I read every one.

Not medical or relationship advice — just a chronically ill therapist sharing what she's learned along the way.

By the time someone with endometriosis finds a therapist who actually understands what they're going through, they've of...
05/25/2026

By the time someone with endometriosis finds a therapist who actually understands what they're going through, they've often spent years being told nothing is wrong. They've seen ten or more doctors. They've been told it's just stress, or anxiety, or bad periods. They've started doubting their own experience of their own body.

shared something so important on this week's episode: providers inside a broken healthcare system often don't realize the impact of that system on patients. They're not always intentionally dismissive. But the result is the same.

People arrive at therapy carrying years of accumulated medical gaslighting, and one of the first jobs we have is helping untangle that dismissal from their own story about their body.

If you've ever started a sentence with "I know this sounds crazy, but…" when describing your own symptoms, this is for you. 💛

Save this for the next time you start to doubt yourself.

Listen to the full conversation with on the latest episode of The Chronic Illness Therapist Podcast.🎙

Not medical advice, just one chronically ill counselor sharing what I've learned about the mind-body connection.

Address

1249 Hartford Avenue SW
Atlanta, GA
30310

Telephone

+14049053391

Website

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when The Chronic Illness Therapist posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Contact The Business

Send a message to The Chronic Illness Therapist:

Shortcuts

Share

Category