Living with a chronic health condition or disability can significantly impact a person’s life. It can alter a person’s activities, daily roles, future plans, and physical and mental health. Research has demonstrated that the degree of distress someone experiences related to chronic health conditions varies and that factors such as social support and a sense of overall emotional stability can influence the degree of distress.
Personal growth can come from loss, distress, and challenge. This is encapsulated in the psychological concept of post-traumatic growth (PTG). Post-traumatic growth is defined as the subjective experience of positive psychological change, or transformation, due to experiencing a highly stressful event. Living with a chronic health condition or disability is not necessarily traumatic and may not be experienced as highly stressful, yet it can be challenging and cause distress. Understanding the concept of PTG is useful in recognizing that distress can facilitate change and personal growth.
Experiencing growth does not decrease or take away distress. It is not a way to feel better, be more positive, or force yourself to find a silver lining in hardship. On the contrary, ongoing distress is often necessary for growth. Also, not all pain has a meaning or a larger purpose. Sometimes it just is. PTG is simply an understanding and recognition that loss and challenge may transform us in beneficial ways. Examples of PTG include an increased appreciation of life, setting new life priorities, feeling a sense of increased personal strength, identifying new possibilities, improving the closeness of relationships, and effecting positive spiritual change.
It is important to acknowledge and honor your experience as it is, and not assume growth will occur or think something is wrong with you if you do not experience some type of growth after a highly stressful experience. It might even seem to invalidate the difficulties you have faced to consider that growth has occurred. Or it might not. Nonetheless, it is worthwhile to understand the possibility of PTG. It is human nature to think in all-or-nothing terms, to think something is all bad or all good. Yet, this is often not the case. Life is a mixed bag. Experiencing growth does not mean you are pleased that hardship happened. It simply means that hardship can lead to a variety of outcomes.
For example, perhaps you have experienced loss and distress related to a professional role and have also deepened a friendship or decided to pursue creative activities that you have historically put off. During or after challenging experiences, it can be helpful to give yourself time to reflect on your experiences and connect with supportive people. More specifically, it may be beneficial to:
- Carve out time to explore your thoughts and feelings about your experiences. This may involve talking with supportive friends, writing or journaling, or engaging in an activity that allows you to connect with your emotions, such as art, or listening to or playing music.
- Reflect on the meaning of the challenge within the context of your life. For example, how has the situation changed how you view yourself or your life priorities?
- Consider how the hardship possibly challenged or changed your beliefs. Hardship often challenges the beliefs and assumptions we have about the world. This can be a difficult process as we may be forced to think about ourselves and the world in a new way. This process may also create more flexible thinking and growth.
- Reflect on your strengths.
- Connect with, and communicate with, others.
- Use emotional coping skills such as observing your internal experience, practicing mindfulness exercises, practicing self-compassion, doing breathing exercises, and engaging in physical movement. You can find more details about these skills in my other posts.
