When you get ill you have the symptoms, the pain, the fatigue and the side effects from the treatment. But rarely in the beginning is it mentioned how it will psychologically wear you down and beat you to the ground, as you cannot perform as you could, do as you would, and be as productive as you should. Then to add insult to injury, to watch your friends and co-workers do these things seemingly without any effort at all.
Productivity as identity
Productivity or work can be solidified as part of our identity because we spend so much of our time, and lives, working. Whether we chose that job, title, role, or career or fell into it- it becomes ingrained into us in many ways.
We are not what we do. That is what we say to others. What we say to ourselves. Vehemently. We are not what we DO. For a living. For work. We are More than That. And yet when work stalls and falls apart and we lose it for whatever reason – due to the economy, being laid off, pandemic or illness we find ourselves at a loss. A sharp loss of self.
Who am I outside of work? That becomes the dominant question we ask ourselves when we lose the capacity to work. Who am I? Who am I. And then you have to look at all the parts of your life you had, or even ignored in the face of work, all the aspects like family life, your social life, your hobbies if they existed, your likes, your dislikes, what you did outside of work, if and when you had the time. All the things. All those things you had to shine a light on and inspect and see who AM I? In those spaces and places.
And who will I be in the future? What will becomes in the face of this void? This massive time void in my life? Well, with chronic illness and pain it isn’t such a massive time void at all, is it? Because it is consumed with pain and fatigue and symptoms. And the management of those. And the usable hours are actually rather small and tiny and fragmented. And because they are such we have to redefine productivity altogether. We have to look at it as not this I value who I am because of what I do for work, or I value who I am because I work, or I value myself because I am productive for this set time a day- because it simply doesn’t work that way anymore. Does it?
Productivity as a value. And you find productivity to be this thing that varies from one moment to the next. From one day to the next. One day there is simply none to be found. Another there seems plenty. And another just a tad, but that simply makes you rather happy. That small amount under you new definition rather makes you glad. You no longer put an emphasis on productivity itself as an important Value in your value system.
And many other values you had while working also slowly adjust as well. Maybe you valued being dependable or reliable but when we were working with chronic pain and illness found we failed to meet those values. And this caused a painful friction in us. Until we had to adjust those values as well. Until eventually we choose new values to hold in high regard and live by that do not cause this painful friction in us.
Because we do what we can, when we can. And that is simply the way it is. There is nothing wrong with listening to what our bodies need from one minute to the next, one day to the next. There is no guilt to be had here. No shame. No blame. It is a different life. A different pace. Because we do what we can, when we can.
Chronically Nikki 
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