How to come to terms with a terrible diagnosis. Psychologist advises

Psychology of illness: will you recover faster if you accept your illness?

Experts treat such experiences with understanding. And yet they warn: do not give in to despondency! Having learned the terrible truth and having experienced the first shock, it is important to be able to choose LIFE.

Our consultant is psychologist Maria Belykh.

Having received a confirmed diagnosis of a serious illness, a person goes through five stages of accepting the diagnosis in one form or another. Hundreds of unanswered questions swarm in my head. The future hangs like a dark cloud. After all, the worst thing is the unknown. Psychologists assure: this is a completely normal reaction. In such a situation, it is natural and even necessary to go through a certain period of grief, to mourn the changes that have occurred in fate. The main thing is not to get stuck in any of these stages.

Stage one. Shock and/or denial

Having received a confirmed diagnosis of a serious illness, the first hours or even days a person experiences a state of shock. He lives and acts “automatically” and may look completely calm and healthy.

Following the shock comes panic, the person begins to rush about literally and figuratively. To protect itself, the psyche develops a “denial reflex”: the patient does not believe in his diagnosis and often tries to lead a normal life, avoiding any reminders of the disease. Such a short-term state of denial is a natural defensive reaction, but if a person remains in this state for too long, then, firstly, he experiences extreme stress, and secondly, he puts his life at great risk, since he does not see a doctor and does not take care about your health. At the same time, relatives may be completely in the dark: often the diagnosis is either hidden from them, or they do not know the whole truth. Therefore, at this stage a person may feel very lonely, even isolated from the world, alone with his fear.

How to cope. Engage in self-education, collecting complete information about your illness. From getting to know the disease, you should gradually move on to getting to know the sick - that is, people suffering from the same disease. As the observations of doctors at the Moscow Center for Multiple Sclerosis show, even ordinary friendly communication between patients increases the effectiveness of treatment and quality of life.

Stage two. Anger

As soon as a person passes the first stage, he begins to face reality and understands: a serious illness is now part of his life. And he often begins to feel angry - at God, at himself for doing something wrong, at doctors who cannot cure him, at others - for ignorance and misunderstanding. And because they... are still healthy.

And although anger is a normal reaction of the human psyche to any crisis in life, when it lasts too long, stress levels rise sharply. And health often deteriorates: after all, the emotional state is in direct connection with the physiological one. It turns out that by being angry, you only act on the hand of the disease. In addition, excessive anger can deprive you of possible allies - people who could provide you with help and support in the future.

How to cope. You shouldn’t “burn through” priceless energy in vain. You need to be angry at the disease. No wonder Tibetan lamas said that “you need to truly hate your illness in order to overcome it.” Look for examples among famous people who fought a worthy battle against a similar disease, lived long and well, and left their mark on history.

How to accept a situation that you cannot change?

Why does a person become fixated on a problem or situation?

Because the event that happened does not suit him, he doesn’t like it, it infuriates him, irritates him, makes him angry, etc.

You don't want this to happen, and it happened against your wishes. This is the main reason why you cannot let go of the situation.

Let's think a little, and then you will understand why you just need to stop resisting what has ALREADY happened?

The moment of acceptance of the situation, the most important, it is this process in the psyche that will launch other processes with the help of which you will find a solution to the problem. Now that you are focused on rejection, all your resources are directed towards resistance and denial.

Stage three. Deal

At this stage, a person tries to come to terms with the situation, making a kind of deal with his subconscious on the principle: if I behave well, everything will be as before. Right now the patient is ready to go to healers, sorcerers, use untested methods of treatment, invent his own, refusing the course prescribed by official medicine. Many turn to faith, and very quickly they can reach the point of unhealthy fanaticism. Others, despite the severity of their condition, go on long-distance pilgrimages. In fact, this is a desire to escape from the disease, but in fact, from oneself.

How to cope. It is important to understand that a disease is not retribution or punishment for something, and it will not disappear anywhere, either magically, or miraculously, or in any other way, that your specific disease is just one of dozens of chronic diseases, that millions people live with a disease similar to yours all their lives.

At the same time, there is no need to prohibit yourself from doing anything. If you like going to a healer, go, just let your doctor know about it. Visits to temples and shrines also have a beneficial effect on the psyche of patients. Just remember that sick people cannot fast (any fast, not just strict fasting!) and cannot remain at the service through force, when the knees buckle and the vision darkens.

Better yet, find yourself a BUSINESS in which you can achieve success and recognition that will truly captivate you. Suffice it to recall the experience of Daria Dontsova, who began writing her detective stories in a hospital bed and managed not only to overcome a serious illness, but also to become famous.

What is humility, what does it mean to come to terms with death

The concept of the Russian word "reconcile" is quite interesting. After all, it is associated with the polysemantic word “mir”, which is used in different senses, and historically goes back to another Russian word - “mera”. What do they both mean?

Peace ( a word that gave us another word - “humility”

) is associated with:

• absence of war;
• a calm life, good relationships with relatives and friends;
• the global human community;
• what we call the Universe;
• silence (harmony) in the soul, etc.

Over time, the word “humility” has acquired a slightly different connotation. A person should not elevate himself above others, and he should be reconciled with everything that happens around him.

The word “measure” previously meant that a person should moderate his claims in relation to anything. In fact, we still use it in this meaning today.

One way or another, both words personify harmony, order and arrangement. And if so, then the meaning of the phrase “come to terms with the death of a loved one” becomes quite clear to us. It means:

1. absence of rebellion, because loved ones have no choice, which means there is no point in persisting, resisting what happened;
2. submission, signified unity with the world (after all, it is not only your loved one who dies);
3. accepting the fact of a person’s death in peace (with oneself) in the soul as a given;
4. understanding that nothing depends on you, etc.

Yes, sometimes it is simply impossible to come to terms with the fact of death. Your whole nature is against... At the same time, everyone will have their own arguments. But you can change your attitude towards the situation through the “correct” experience of grief and acceptance of the sad fact.

Psychologist Mikhail Khasminsky expressed a very wise thought, saying that to fully experience grief, that is, to accept the fact of loss, “this means turning black grief into a bright memory”...

Stage four. Depression

When reality finally sinks in, virtually all patients experience some degree of depression. Huge unresolved questions remain about plans for the future, about relationships with others, about changes in status in the family and at work. The need for constant treatment often radically changes the usual way of life, starting with the daily routine. Many people at this stage just want to crawl their heads under the covers and hide from the whole world.

How to cope. First of all, you need to understand that this is a temporary period. Feelings of hopelessness and gloomy pictures of the future are chimeras, which in essence are nothing more than symptoms of depression. Once you experience it, you will see your life completely differently. A diagnosis is not a reason to give up plans and hopes. Moreover, for each serious disease, new treatment methods are constantly being developed that help maintain capacity for a long time. However, there are diseases that provoke depression at the biochemical level. In this case, you need to seek help from a psychiatrist who will prescribe you treatment with antidepressants.

What are the differences between self-acceptance and rejection?

Let's present the comparative analysis in the form of a table:

Stage five. Acceptance and revaluation

Acceptance and reconciliation are not the same thing. Acceptance means that a person has come to understand that he can live with his illness, that the patient has developed clear positive goals and aspirations, the implementation of which even illness cannot prevent. At this stage, it is time to re-evaluate your life, your plans and goals. Often, only after making a serious diagnosis do people understand what is really important and valuable to them, what is worth spending time and energy on, they focus on what is most important for themselves and give up what is unnecessary.

What do you need to do to accept a situation that you cannot change?

First of all, feel like an adult, responsible for your behavior, actions, thinking and emotions.

When you resist what is already in your life, you end up like a little child who throws tantrums and rolls on the floor in order to get what he wants.

Only your behavior now is not rolling on the floor, but emotions and nerves.

In order to get out of the child’s state, try to distance yourself from the problem and look at what is happening as if from the outside, like a movie.

Your task is to calm your emotions that do not allow your head to think sensibly.

What prevents you from accepting the situation?

Thoughts and questions constantly arise in your head to which you have no answer.

• Why did this happen?
• This shouldn't have happened.
• This can't be true.
• I can't come to terms with this.
• I do not believe in that.
• I can't accept this.
• He (she) should not have acted like that.
• This is not fair, it shouldn't be this way.
• Why did this happen to me?

Any of these questions and thoughts put you in a position of resistance.

Let's look at a few thoughts that trigger the thought process over and over again.

It should not be. It turns out that a certain event happened in spite of something. And this is something, your own assessment of what is happening.

You somehow put yourself in God's position and believe that there has been a mistake or misunderstanding. Those. You completely deny the laws of cause and effect. The event that happened to you is a consequence of some specific processes.

For example, a plane crashed, there were many victims, a lot of grief. It goes without saying that there will be mourners for their relatives who will deny what happened, blame everyone and everything and ask different questions. But one of the main thoughts will be the thought that this should not have happened .

But planes don’t just fall, there are many factors why a plane can crash - human error, breakdown, bad weather conditions, birds, hurricanes, turbulence, etc.

It turns out that there is a reason why the plane crashed.

This means that it had to fall because there was an objective reason, for example, engine failure + weather conditions. It turns out that miracles do not happen; every consequence (event) has its own cause.

I hope you understand my point. What happened was what had to happen because there were prerequisites and there was a reason.

And just because you resist, nothing will change.

It turns out that you are emotionally “stuck” in the situation. Time moves forward, but you seem to be in the past, and you are trying to persistently fight what is already there. The problem is that you don't recognize that you've ALREADY been in what happened for a long time.

Exercise for accepting the situation you are stuck in

Your situation or problem is the end result of some processes.

Write 5 to 10 reasons or reasons why what happened happened.

If you don't know the reasons, then dream up.

• Now, when you don’t know why, this happened, your brain is working “idle”, and is constantly loading the question - why? But, you did not think in the direction of the reasons and prerequisites, therefore, your brain cannot put an end to these thoughts.
• Make a detailed analysis of your situation, it is better to do this on a piece of paper.
• Draw a circle in the middle of the piece of paper in which write your situation;
• Below or above write the reasons that provoked your situation.
• Connect each cause and central event with arrows.
• Concentrate your gaze on your drawing for 20-30 seconds, trying not to think about anything.

Now say the following words:

This happened (your situation) because... (one of the reasons)

I accept (your situation) because there is a reason for what happened (one of the reasons)

You need to say these 2 phrases with all your prerequisites and reasons for your unpleasant situation.

How many times should I say it? Until you feel your body relax, the tension goes away, and you feel calm.

I assure you that these phrases will work great.

Why? The key word in these phrases is “because.”

Psychological research shows that the human brain responds very well to the phrase “because,” especially to those words that are said after saying “because.”

Attention relatives and friends

► After receiving news of a serious diagnosis, it is better not to leave a person alone. ► Use any strings to tie the patient more tightly to life: try to show him new, interesting things. ► If the patient has thoughts of suicide, immediately contact psychological help centers! ► Do not put an adult in the position of a helpless baby. Emphasize through words and actions the patient’s strength and confidence in the fight against the disease. Avoid tearful and pitiful intonations when communicating with him. Make a choice: either you support him and help fight the disease, or step aside.