Chronic illness & Living Alone

[menaughty]

Hello Everyone,

I wonder if any other members over here live alone and deal with Chronic Illnesses. I myself have a mild-moderate case of ulcerative colitis.

how do you guys manage living alone? 

 

[+ Charlie]

I live alone (with my dog), but my only serious medical problem is my age.  The other night I was lying in bed in a strange state between being awake and asleep, and wondered if I were dying. My main concern was how long it might take for someone to notice that I was missing. Then I remembered that my house cleaner was coming that afternoon, so he would find my body before it started to rot and my dog started to eat it, so I relaxed and fell asleep. 

 But my concerns about living alone are not normally so morbid. I live in an age-restricted retirement community and have neighbors who also live alone, so we tend to be alert to one another's situations. I think it is always good to have friendly neighbors whom you know well enough to entrust with your keys. The other day I had an earthquake alert on my phone, and I felt the ground rumbling under my floor. As soon as it stopped, I went nextdoor to check on my neighbor, who was widowed in December and now lives alone; to my surprise, she hadn't felt the quake at all, although she also got an alert on her phone. Soon my phone was buzzing with calls and texts from neighbors checking in, as well as friends from outside the community. I have neighbors whom I socialize with every day as I walk my dog, and I belong to a group of card players who meet regularly in our Lodge. I also belong to a tennis club and usually play tennis a couple of days a week. 

The important thing to remember if you live alone--regardless of your medical condition--is to maintain regular social contacts, and do the same things for them that you hope they would do for you.

Edited yesterday at 05:41 AM by Charlie

[MRK]

On 1/24/2026 at 7:42 PM, menaughty said:

Hello Everyone,

I wonder if any other members over here live alone and deal with Chronic Illnesses. I myself have a mild-moderate case of ulcerative colitis.

how do you guys manage living alone? 

 

Hello, it is incredibly difficult. I have a rare genetic disorder that kicked in in my late 20s. It just slowly took away parts of my life piece by piece (chronic fatigue is a huge part of it, but unfortunately only one of dozens of symptoms). I was very social.  I was also the most relationship oriented guy out there and wanted to have kids and a family and that became impossible. Even just dating was really difficult. I've had some periods where I felt well enough to date and because of the type of genetic disorder I have I can get away with not telling them and they will not know. Obviously if it worked out I would tell them.

So when you are chronically ill and live alone there is no one to take care of you but yourself. It is isolating. It is the exact opposite of how I thought my life would end up. It is a really complex and all encompassing disease so it's not something that is easily understood by other people and it isn't even something a lot of doctors outside of that area know what it is.

Thankfully I've had a dog through most of it. But I went from someone who had more friends than I knew what to do with to being alone almost all the time (literally). I also always had a boyfriend or was in a relationship and so that was a big switch. My best friend was the only one I could really talk to about all of this and he died of cancer almost a decade ago. My other best friend from about fifth grade on moved across the country just as this was happening and we lost touch for a long time. Some of my other close friends all live out of state now. Everyone has their own stuff going on.

I think about what if something happens and there's no one to call the ambulance or drive you to the hospital. I honestly don't care about myself I worry about my dogs. 
 

Anyway now that I look at this I think I should delete it. I think I will leave it up for a bit and just say even if you're chronically ill if you still have some friends consider yourself lucky, if you have a supportive family consider yourself lucky and if you're someone who is just starting to deal with something like this do your best to maintain relationships with your friends and family. I know I can be hard when you're really really sick but you will regret it if you don't.

[+ Pensant]

19 hours ago, Charlie said:

I think it is always good to have friendly neighbors whom you know well enough to entrust with your keys

I’m fortunate in that my neighbors in both of the places where I live have keys and my garage code. High trust is a luxury these days.

[+ jeezopete]

12 hours ago, MRK said:

Anyway now that I look at this I think I should delete it. I think I will leave it up for a bit and just say even if you're chronically ill if you still have some friends consider yourself lucky, if you have a supportive family consider yourself lucky and if you're someone who is just starting to deal with something like this do your best to maintain relationships with your friends and family. I know I can be hard when you're really really sick but you will regret it if you don't.

Please reconsider and let your post remain here. At the very least, one other member may read it and realize he's not the only one in his situation. Probably not any real consolation but just knowing someone else out there understands how you feel may offer a small spark of positive thought today.