Claim Your Illness Experience, Don't Let It Claim You

I like to start my morning by listening to a TED talk while I eat breakfast - something funny or enlightening or inspirational. This morning, I cam across a talk by a cancer survivor that really hit home.

Though her own bad experience was cancer, she is talking about bad, life-changing experiences in general here - whether it is cancer or rape or an unfair firing....or illness, in our case. And although, we don't usually recover from ME/CFS or become "survivors," a lot of what she discusses here is very relevant to us. The one line she repeats often in this talk is:

"Claim your bad experience; don't let it claim you."

She talks about the dangers of defining yourself by these bad experiences. No matter how sick we are and how limited in our lives, we can still define ourselves by our roles and passions, beyond just being sick. I love her opening question about defining yourself. So, check it out for yourself - it's a short talk, only 16 minutes long:



Oh, and the bit about cancer awareness panties alone is worth a good laugh, at the very least!

She's given me a lot to think about, including how much time I spend every day immersed in our world of illness. Hope you find it just as thought-provoking as I did!

So....three things that define me: I am a writer, a book lover, and a parent.