Breaking the Stigma: Chronic Illness and Its Impact on Mental Health

I have spent years navigating the world of chronic illness, specifically Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA). What I didn’t realize early on was how much both the illness and my advocacy to get proper care would impact my mental health. I mean, we all know that being in pain is awful. That exhaustion isn’t just about feeling sleepy but feeling completely drained in every way possible. But what nobody prepared me for was how much my diagnosis, my symptoms, my treatments, and even the way doctors talked (or didn’t talk) to me would affect my emotional and mental well-being.

The truth is, chronic illness and mental health struggles are deeply intertwined. Yet, I rarely see them talked about together. The stigma surrounding mental health is significant enough, and when you add in a physically debilitating condition, it’s as if the world only wants to focus on one battle at a time. The reality? They don’t exist in separate bubbles. They feed off each other, sometimes in ways that feel impossible to untangle.

The Mental Toll of a Chronic Diagnosis

When I was first diagnosed with RA decades after I first showed symptoms, my initial emotions were mostly confusion and frustration at not being heard earlier, and not being taken seriously when I was younger. I wasn’t expecting immediate physical relief, because, let’s be honest, even putting a name to what’s happening inside your body doesn’t make it any easier to live with. But as time passed, that frustration deepened into something heavier: grief.

Yes, grief. Because when you have a chronic illness, you lose things.

You lose the ability to trust your body.

You lose spontaneity.

You lose the privilege of just pushing through pain the way other people do.

You lose a sense of control, which, if you’re anything like me, is in it of itself terrifying.

Nobody told me that my grief would turn into anxiety.

Or that anxiety would morph into depression.

Nobody told me that the constant stress of managing medications, doctor’s appointments, insurance battles, and symptom unpredictability would feel just as exhausting as the illness itself. But here I was, caught in the cycle, trying to figure out how to deal with my body and my mind at the same time.

Separating What Should Be Connected

In a perfect world, rheumatologists would ask about mental health just as often as they ask about joint pain. Primary care doctors would screen for depression as part of managing autoimmune conditions. But in my experience, that’s not the norm. Instead, I’ve had doctors focus on my inflammation markers and medication side effects while ignoring the very real toll those things were taking on my emotional well-being.

It took me years to realize that I needed to advocate even harder for my mental health - frankly, just as much as, if not more than, my physical health. And it shouldn’t have been that way.

It shouldn’t be this way.

I shouldn’t have had to be the one to connect the dots between my pain, my fatigue, my inability to function at times, and the weight of hopelessness settling in my chest.

But I was.

And I know I’m not alone in that.

The Fear of Speaking Up

There’s also the stigma—both internal and external—of admitting that chronic illness affects mental health. I’ve caught myself thinking, You’re already dealing with so much. Don’t add “mental illness” to the list too. It’s like I feared that acknowledging the impact RA had on my anxiety and depression, and as if admitting that out loud would somehow make me weaker, as if dealing with an autoimmune disease wasn’t already a full-time battle.

And then there’s the outside world.

The well-meaning but utterly misguided people who say, Maybe if you just had a more positive mindset, your pain wouldn’t be so bad. Or the ones who assume that if you’re struggling emotionally, it must mean you’re not handling your illness “correctly.” That if you just did yoga, or drank green smoothies, or “focused on gratitude,” you wouldn’t feel the way you do.

In my opinion, that kind of thinking is dangerous. It invalidates real suffering. It pushes people further into isolation. And it stops people from seeking the help they need because they feel like they should be able to handle it all on their own.

The truth is, living with a chronic illness is incredibly hard. And it’s okay to say that out loud. It’s okay to acknowledge that the pain, the limitations, the unpredictability—it all weighs on us. It’s okay to admit that your body isn’t the only thing hurting, that your heart and mind are hurting too.

Unfortunately, it’s on us to talk about this more. To normalize conversations about therapy for chronic illness patients. We need more doctors to recognize the link between physical and mental health. We need spaces where we can say, I’m not okay today without feeling like we’re failing in some way.

If you’re struggling, please know this: You are not weak. You are not imagining things. You are not a burden. Your feelings are real, valid, and worth addressing. And most importantly, you are not alone.

Chronic illness and mental health should never be separate conversations. Because when we talk about them together, we open doors—for better care, for more understanding, for real support. And that’s something every single one of us deserves.

[Note, if you’re struggling with your mental health at any moment, please text HELP to 741741, the Crisis Text Line, or call 988 to reach the Crisis and Suicide Hotline]