How To Do Life With A Chronic Illness by Pippa Stacey {Guest Post}
{This article contains Affiliate links. All images are copyright to Pippa Stacey}
Hello! My name is Pippa, and I’m the author of How To Do Life With A Chronic Illness. The book is released on 18th April 2024 but available to pre-order right now! If I may, I’d love to tell you a bit more about me and how this book came about…
I was diagnosed with ME/CFS almost ten years ago and have lived with the symptoms for much longer. It’s no secret that there are very few resources out there for people living with the condition, and similar chronic illnesses, and even fewer sources of support. Of the stuff that currently exists, most of it is geared towards the physical aspects of the condition – things like managing your symptoms and medication. These things are incredibly important, and I’m grateful this information is out there – goodness knows, we can never have enough. However, over the last decade I’ve always felt there was a gap for resources on how to do… the rest of life, and how to live a good life alongside chronic illness.
Following my own diagnosis at a specialist clinic, I was handed my share of leaflets and sent back home to figure the rest out for myself. I remember sitting in my childhood bed and wondering what on Earth was supposed to happen now. Although most of us chronically ill folk are resilient and resourceful humans and we do what we can to take care of our physical health and adapt to our new reality, there were still so many questions I had.
Over the early years I became more skilled at managing my symptoms and accepting that there was only so much I could do to help with myself, but what about the rest of my life? How was I going to engage with the things that bring me joy? What impact would this have on my identity and my place in the world? How would I preserve and cherish my relationships with others? What could I do to still feel like ‘myself’, even alongside a life-altering health condition?
It's of course important to take care of ourselves and we must continue advocating for more medical support and treatment options, but I feel like chronic illness has been confined exclusively within the medical model of disability for too long. We deserve lives as rich and fulfilling as any other person, regardless of whether we have wonky bodies or not. Therefore, I decided to approach this book on chronic illness through more of a social model of disability lens – never playing down the debilitating impact it can have on a person, but focussing more broadly on the areas of life that are often pushed to one side when we speak about energy limiting conditions. Therefore, this book contains practical tips in areas ranging from friendship, socialising, and dating, to bespoke advice on rediscovering your identity, learning to self-advocate, and figuring out the stuff that truly matters to you. I want this book to serve as a reminder that even with our shared experiences of chronic ill health in an ableist world, we are all our unique and glorious selves and that our happiness matter just as much as anybody else’s.
Throughout the book you’ll also find resource lists and links to related videos, and each chapter concludes with a series of journal prompts. There’s space for you to complete these in the book if you wish, and there are also digital pages you can download if you require assistive tech or if typing is a more accessible form of writing for you. No two chronically ill people are the same, so it felt important to regularly hold space for you to reflect on your own circumstances and identify the things that are most resonant with you.
Essentially, this book is a cumulation of all the stuff I’ve had to figure out for myself over the past 10+ years. It contains plenty of my own lived experiences as well as those from a range of other chronically ill contributors, and I hope that the advice we share not only affirms and validates your own experiences, but also equips you with the tools to Do Life in a way that works for you. It took me a good few years to find my feet with all of this but I hope this book helps you avoid some of that anguish and get to the good stuff in life *much* more quickly and painlessly than I did. No toxic positivity or squashing down negative experiences. No patient-blaming. No guru woo-woo. Instead, just realistic and genuinely useful advice to help you along your way… with a little touch of humour, of course.
Releasing this book is one of my biggest dreams come true. This is not my first book (you can see other things I’ve written here!) but as a chronically ill writer, I never thought I’d be able to find a place in the fiercely competitive world of traditional publishing. With the help of the publishing team, we’ve turned a decade of lived experience into a beautiful book that I can hold into my hands… and one that, if you wish to, you’ll be able to hold in your own hands soon as well. The book will be available in eBook and audiobook format following release too!
I’ve tried to write the book I wish I had back at the beginning of my own journey, and one that will hopefully provide comfort, guidance, and a sense of belonging for anybody navigating a similar path in their own life. If you decide to purchase a copy, I really hope you enjoy it!
Thank you so much for having me on the blog, and to those of you who’ve read this far – I appreciate it more than you know. You can pre-order a copy of How To Do Life With A Chronic Illness here, or wherever you like to get your books. And in the meantime, you can find more from me on my blog, Life Of Pippa, or on Instagram at @lifeofpippa!
