According to Charmaz, when you suffer a chronic disease you eventually suffer from restricted life,you feel isolated and like a burden to others and thus you are being discredited. People living with chronic disease experience not only physical pain but also psychological distress and as a consequence they lose control of their lives and thus losing control of theirselves.That loss of self is condusive to individuals' feeling of isolation.
What really impressed me both in the paper and the clips is that patients went through some similar stages. For instance, they were shocked at the beggining, they got angry and they denied their stage of illness. Then they felt depression as they considered theirselves a burden to others and they worried and were scared about their future. But then they understood that they have to keep it going, as a 60 years old lady says characteristically, and they finally accepted it. People worked that out so that instead of letting their regimen of disease control their future life, they were the ones to do so.
The path to acceptance in not really easy. Some of the patients felt that they can't deal with the illness or with the fact that they are dependent to others and their self-esteem was really low. Others compared theirselves to their former condition and tried to do the things they used to do in the past. But under the new circumstances, these things are inevitably not achievable. Minor everyday things are becoming considerable obstacles. In one of the clips, for example, it is said that sometimes when travelling you can't go to certain places as you're not alloweded certain vaccination and this is a big change in everyday life since things that you used to take for granded or things you didn't need to think of, now look different.
Finally, despite all the above and the fact that undergoing a chronic illness is hard, I do agree with Charmaz's point that as long as individuals have choice in valued activities and freedom to pursue these choices then their everyday life won't be restricted, the suffering will be reduced and self-esteem will be maintained.
