Whether you are a caregiver or living with a chronic or life threatening condition, you are more than the diagnosis. Being a person living with cancer, depression, heart disease, Parkinson’s or whatever else is part of your experience but it should not be your sole identity. Ditto if you are a caregiver.
When I first started working in AIDS in 1985, the medical profession as well as the media referred to these patients as “victims.” Many of the gay men were quick to point out that they weren’t victims, rather they were “people living with AIDS” or PLWAs, which evolved to PWAs. A number of the docs, nurses and social workers made light of that, saying, “who are they kidding? They are dying of AIDS.” Interesting that this acronym, DOA, is the same as Dead on Arrival.
The PWA approach struck me as affirming and a lot more accurate . These men were far more than a diagnosis and they recognized that “living with” instead of “dying from” set a more positive place from which they could go about the business of healing. It didn’t mean they were going to “cure” themselves of AIDS, which of course many believed. Instead, it created a more empowering place from which to live.
Healing is often viewed as an interchangeable term for cure. However, we are all mortal and therefore are never cured from death. Consequently, I choose to use the word “healing” in much the same way as others might use the term well being. Essentially, through the art of healing we live our most fulfilled life regardless of how we may appear or sound, or the number of days, months or years we are here. It is our inner core, spirit, soul, or whatever expression you wish to use, that truly defines us as a whole being.
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