How To Cope

When your life changes and something major happens in a short period of time, its especially hard to process what happened, let alone cope with it. In my experience of dealing with many severe medical issues, I have learned certain ways and tips on how I cope and deal with the affects coming with medical issues. 

When I first started getting sick, my relationship with God was a big question. I was unsure why such a great God with such an amazing plan would make me suffer. I just didn’t understand, and my relationship with God weakened. I stopped praying as much, I stopped reading the Bible as much, and overall didn’t have as strong of a relationship with God as I had in the past. I was just confused and didn’t know how to cope with such an awful thing happening to me, taking away all the things I love. Because while getting sick seems like such a small thing, it can have such a big impact on someone’s life. For example, you aren’t able to see your friends as often because you never feel good, you are constantly going to the hospital for appointments, procedures, surgeries, and many more, and on top of that, you have to juggle the regular struggles of life including school, work, and more. 

So how do I cope with this? How do I manage and keep a positive attitude in the midst of this chaotic time? I have learned that the hardest thing during struggles and difficult time is keeping a positive attitude. When you are frustrated or sad, you just want to let your emotions out and manage. This is one of the worst things for me, because it gets me in this cycle of thinking about all the bad things going on in my life, and it doesn’t give me a reason to be happy. Getting in this vicious cycle of being upset or frustrated only makes things worse for me personally, so the best thing is to try and keep a positive attitude. Now by all means this does NOT mean to just mask all your negative thoughts and emotions and try to keep everything inside as long as possible, but more to try and not think about the negative things happening in your life. Having emotions is 110% normal and a part of life, but getting in that cycle of always being sad or frustrated does more harm than good, and its harder to find the happy moments in life when you are too busy being upset about everything. 

So the overall idea of what I’ve learned? Try to stay positive and focus on the good in your life. Constantly thinking about the bad helps no one, and you begin to forget about the good in your life. People care about you and you have a purpose. God puts every single one of us on this Earth for a reason, and we have to trust His plan and purpose for us.