Together We Thrive

Are you wondering how chronic illness may impact your future dating life? In this blog post, a rheumatoid arthritis patient speaks on her experience navigating online and in-person dating while being chronically ill in her 20s. While dating with a chronic illness can be daunting, she emphasizes that you can find meaningful connections through open-communication, prioritizing self-care, and being selective with who you choose to be vulnerable with.

Many chronic illness patients feel like they are a burden to their loved ones– an especially difficult and complex feeling when entering a new relationship. This blog post offers practical advice for empowering yourself while taking on the dating scene: loving all parts of yourself, reflecting on who deserves to get to know the real you, and being open and vulnerable. Under the Disclosure section, they walk you through telling your romantic partner about your illness, helping make the experience less daunting.

In this 75-minute webinar, Kira Lynne, a clinical counsellor, takes a deep dive on what it means to be dating while living with chronic illness. She discusses themes of socio-cultural influences on caretaking, exercises for increasing your acceptance of your own illness and the consequences it comes with, exercises for understanding and validating your partner through periods of difficulty due to illness, and advice on continually strengthening your bond with your partner.

Pamela Rae Schuller, a New-York comedian with Tourettes and OCD, shares the good and the bad of living with her health conditions. On this hour-long podcast episode, she shares her experiences of dating with a disability and a mental health condition. She takes a witty and light-hearted approach to her stories, making sure you’ll leave the podcast enlightened!

If you are entering your mid-to-late teens, you may have questions about how your chronic illness will affect your intimate relations with romantic partners. In this blog post, youth psychosexologist Moira Tzitzika discusses the vulnerable topics of body image, self esteem issues, deciding if/when to tell your partner about your illness, and possible effects chronic illness can have on sexuality.

Telling people about your chronic illness can be scary and intimidating, but it doesn’t have to be. In this 18-minute youtube video, a chronic illness advocate shares her advice on how to tell your family, work, school, friends, and romantic partners that you have a chronic illness. If you are wondering who to tell, when to tell them, and how to do it, this video is for you!

Want to tell your friends about your illness, but don’t know where to begin? This blog post walks you through a short script to start the conversation. They also provide a script guiding your teacher in telling your classmates, if you’d like them to.

Do you have cancer and want to talk to your friends about it? Telling your friends about your cancer can be tough. You might be wondering “Where do I begin?”,  “How will my friends respond?”, or “How do I stay connected with my friends during treatment?”. If you want answers to these questions, this blog post is for you!

Would you like to know how to support someone with chronic illness, or do you want to give advice to your loved ones about how to best support you? This blog post explains why coping with a chronic illness is difficult, how social support can benefit the patient, and 8 tips on how to show your support.

The YouTube channel You Look Okay To Me is run by a young woman living with chronic illness. She makes 5-20 minute video essays discussing a variety of topics, including “The chronic illness guide to working from home”, “Why is it so hard to describe my pain”, and “Things not to say to someone with a chronic illness”. 

She also discusses intersections between being chronically ill and being a person of colour (POC), offering a perspective that is crucial in understanding the experiences of marginalized groups. 
Check out her instagram @youlookokaytome for reels and posts you can relate to!