Avoiding Isolation Our society likes to think that it is compassionate and willing to rehabilitate people who are disabled or suffering from chronic diseases. The reality is that disabled people are often shunted aside or even shunned. Employers and co-workers can keep their distance. Family and friends, attentive and sympathetic at first, can drift away over time as they deal with their own problems and live their own lives. Everyone can feel uncomfortable talking to someone who is seriously ill, not knowing quite how to relate or what to say. At times like these, it is easy to feel abandoned and lonely.
Even when you are surrounded by caring friends and family, you may feel cut off. Any life-threatening disease can put you in touch with the essential aloneness humans feel when contemplating their own mortality . Some people turn their attention and energies inward to such a degree that they lose contact with life and the rest of humanity.
Isolation and loneliness can often be self-inflicted. If you focus on grieving or feeling sorry for yourself or if you accept the diagnosis as a death sentence, you may snip your ties to the world and live as though you already belong to the dead. When that happens—just as when isolation comes from the outside and old connections are broken by others—you have to make new connections, building new bridges to people and activities that can renew your energy and zest for living.
You may be frightened or pessimistic about taking the first steps toward making a new life. But you can change direction. The benefits of doing so make the effort more than worthwhile.
