For Family Members & Friends
Having a family member or friend with Lyme or another chronic illness can be devastating. It can bring up feelings of frustration, fear, grief, and powerlessness. Yet, your sick family member or friend really needs you. Having a chronic illness such as Lyme can be an extraordinarily isolating experience. What used to feel normal for them may seem like a herculean task— simple things, like going to the grocery store, meeting new people, or for some even getting out of bed.
As a family member you can’t make yourself responsible for their recovery, yet you can provide them with love and support.
Educate yourself about Lyme disease… What it is, what happens to folks with it, how the medical system handles it. This is perhaps one of the greatest ways to help your family member or friend feel not so alone.
Please never shame your ill family member or call them crazy for having their symptoms. Would you shame someone for having cancer? What about Parkinson’s or Diabetes? Heart Disease? Chronically ill individuals are not choosing to be ill, and they didn’t cause their illness by some lack of fortitude, toughness, or anything else.
Please don’t minimize their experience (giving them the message that ‘its not that bad’), as this will likely result in a reluctance to share more with you… furthering their potential for isolation.
Reach out to them when you can, even if its just to let them know you are there, that you love and support them
Understand that when they say they can’t do something, it’s not because they don’t want to. Please don’t put pressure on them, their capacity to tolerate stress is greatly diminished. Things that are not stressful for healthy individuals can be experienced as extraordinarily stressful for chronically ill individuals.
If you are able to be present with their sadness (without trying to change it) allow them to grieve for what they have lost.
Please don’t give them advice about treatment unless they ask for it or want it… they probably have done a tremendous amount of research on their condition and having too many opinions can simply turn into confusion and stress.
One exception: if they are not already, you might encourage them to see a Lyme Literate Medical Doctor… you can tell them this website told you to bring that up with them.
Here are some ideas to consider if you’d like to support your ill family member or friend: