Dealing with chronic illness isolation by becoming my best friend

Isolation due to chronic illness is incredibly traumatic and soul-wrenching. I deal with it by becoming my own best friend. Here are my practices.

In the yoga world that I was once part of there was an idea that isolation and withdrawal from society in and of itself would help you toward deeper spiritual growth. The theory was that isolation accompanied by meditation forces out your demons so you can relieve yourself of them and have deeper spiritual experiences. 

I knew a couple of people who went on isolation retreats (sometimes for years). Some of them came back even more introverted and withdrawn, yet claimed they were more enlightened, whatever that meant to them,

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I was never intrigued by these isolation retreats. I was already introverted and I didn’t feel the men (yes, they were all men for some reason) coming back from them were more compassionate, open and had dealt with their issues to an extent that had changed their relationships and life — they seemed the opposite to compassionate and open in fact. Some had even grown egos the size of houses, as they felt elevated above others. I remember one person boasting that he could sit in meditation for six hours as if it had become a competition. That was not something to strive for.

While I deeply respect the tradition of withdrawing from society as a serious guided spiritual practice, this felt more like bored white guys in a competition to be the most spiritually hardcore. 

Today, now that I am myself involuntarily isolated due to severe ME I look back and feel anger towards those men who saw isolation retreats as competing to win a spiritual iron man: why put yourself through something that is deeply traumatic to millions of people? 

At the same time, I also thought, “but since I’m in isolation I am going to make the best of it and make it my own personal spiritual retreat.” 

I need to say that I could only think this way once my symptoms and situation had stabilised. This kind of thinking was not possible when I was still in a state of emergency, when I was constantly so sick that I could barely speak and yearning to leave this Earth and when I felt so poisoned that I had to detach from my body and mind completely. This thinking was only possible when I got the right kind of medication and the right kind of help from my parents. I see it, in some ways, as a privileged situation — not everybody has access to medication or adequate care.

I also wanted my spiritual practice to be something else than what the men at my yoga studio strived for. They strived to get rid of their emotions and attachments, which is not a goal in any spiritual traditions if you look beyond the surface, and which, to me, implies some hidden misogyny, as emotions, the feminine realm, are judged as weak. 

Instead, I decided I wanted to use this time to become my best friend. Afterall, I was my own main company. 

At first I began to listen to and observe the voices inside my head. The loudest was of course my inner critic. While I find value in the inner critic (it keeps you on your feet if it speaks at the right time and with the right intention), I noticed it said some horrible things, like: “You’re too fat!” Or “You look silly when you walk!” Or “You’re too this and that!” (Yes, my inner critic is fatphobic and ableist and I don’t like it).

I also noticed it judged and berated all my feelings and unnecessarily criticized my writing or singing. I tried to treat it with kindness and sternness at the same time, saying “Ok, hi there, please don’t say things like that, it’s not nice.” Although at times I got so annoyed it turned into an internal shouting match. With repetition, the inner critic got more quiet and only came out when I needed it (for example to edit a piece of writing or a song).

Then I noticed another voice as I was constantly defending myself against it inside my mind.  The voice said things like, “you're not really that sick, why aren’t you doing more?” Or “if you can do that, then you should be able to do this!” And all kinds of gaslighty comments. These types of comments don’t come from me, they come from years of medical gaslighting. I had unconsciously allowed those voices inside my mind.

I also noticed another voice, the darkness police I call it. It wanted to control and regulate all the words I was sharing and commented on how dark and sad my words were: “you’re turning people off with all that illness’. I think that voice comes from all the years spent in wellness culture where positive thinking and positive energy and ‘high vibe’ was religion. Illness was not ‘high vibe’ in that world. 

It was hard, at first, to work with these voices and ask them, gently, to stop. It took a long time and I got annoyed and frustrated along the way. It also made me sad to notice how unfriendly those voices really were and that I had been living with them for so long. It’s still a work in progress, but after years of practice I feel it is easier to catch them before they become too loud. 

I’ve also started writing and talking to myself. I guess most people do this in their diaries, but I had never been much of a diary person. I try to tune into that more loving and wise part of myself. I’ll do a few seconds of deep breathing, empty my thoughts and set an intention for love and clarity. I’ll write a question and then I listen inward and respond. Or I might just have a conversation.

This has become an important practice for me as I spent many years at the beginning of my illness listening to external advice that went against what I felt was right on the inside. I was told by medical and alternative practitioners that I was just deconditioned, had childhood wounds, couldn’t set boundaries, was stressed and all other things that never felt true to me, but that I believed in, because they seemed to be the experts. I was also told that graded exercise therapy and cognitive therapy would repair my body. I constantly got sick trying these therapies and never got better, yet I continued, because that’s what I was told. So the practice of talking and writing to myself keeps me connected with my own inner truth and intuition.

These practices have helped me become my best friend and have helped me deal with and navigate isolation. It doesn’t mean I’m perfectly fine with isolation (I’m really not!), but it makes it a bit easier to live within and I love that I have managed to change my relationship to myself for the better. 

For me, becoming my best friend is a feminist practice. It helps me conquer the patriarchally imposed shame of living in a female disabled body, it revolts against the negative stereotyping of emotions, intuition and compassion as something weak and it counters the consistent messaging I get when living in a paternalistic welfare state that I and my disabled non-working body is a burden.

What about you?

Have you experienced periods of isolation? What were your favorite tools or ways of dealing with it? 

If you haven’t experienced isolation, how do you think you would react and what do you think you would need to live within it?

How do you find the voices inside your head? Are they supportive or destructive or something else?