Giving Back

I attended a "Living Well with chronic illness" through my employer and health region a few months back. I completed the course feeling empowered and with a strong desire to help others. 

I remember the beginning months of my diagnosis and how I felt.  Helpless, afraid, powerless, alone. 

I want to make those months a little easier for someone else. I want to make the dark moments a little less dark for them. 

I agreed to take the peer training to facilitate this course for others living with chronic illness. I think not only will it keep me in check and using the tools I learned, but it will also give me a sense of purpose. 

If I can make things even just a little easier for someone going through a dark and hard time I want to do it. 

Even if it is as simple as someone sitting in the course realizing, "I am not alone, there are others with similar struggles and feelings". 

Before I learned anything in this course, just sitting in a small group listening to others share, I already felt validated. 

I have always had a wonderful and positive support system with my friends and family.  But while they are always supporting they thankfully could never relate. Sitting next to someone who can't feel their hands, has balance issues, tears up thinking about the unpredictability of their future has calmed me and made me stronger. 

I have signed up to the peer instructor course so that I can help people out of the dark and times and let them know not only are they not alone, there are people who can relate, show you tools to make things easier and give you hope.