Living With a Chronic Condition in Midlife: What Stability Really Looks Like

Letting Go of the Fantasy of Getting Back to Normal

Chronic illness in midlife often poses its own unique set of challenges. Our bodies don’t recover quiet as quickly as they used to, we start to lose a lot of the the defensively our bodies have had to prevent illnesses and such, and there is far less support for us dealing with our illnesses, than when when were younger. This became glaring noticeable after  I was diagnosed with cirrhosis in April of 2021. That was hard news to swallow and, admittedly, I went through some very dark thoughts and finally decided to start fighting. I developed the mindset that I could beat this disease. that I could get back to being normal, to how it was before my diagnosis. As each new test result came in, each new complexity of this disease was revealed to me in stunning clarity, I started to realize that there is no going back. I needed to find a different way of looking at my situation. 

It was at this juncture that I came to the revelation that I have a relationship with Cirrhosis and as such, it needed to be treated that way…

Did that surprise you? Good, because many of the things we deal with in life are exactly that, a relationship… with ourselves. I started my learning in that what I have tos thrive for is stability with this disease. I needed to absolve myself from the thoughts that stability means a cure, because a cure only comes at the cost of a transplant. I needed to reshape the idea that stability doesnt mean stagnation. How I approach this disease will be different almost daily and I need to be able to adapt to what may happen. And lastly, stability is an ongoing relationship, just like dating or being married to someone. You are given a new situation involving you and another party and you have to find ways to navigate, adapt to changes, and find what nourishes that new relationship.

Join me today, as we talking about  Living with a Chronic Condition in Midlife: What Stability Really Looks Like.

1. Letting Go of the Fantasy of Getting Back to Normal
2. What We’re Taught to Believe About Health (And Why It Fails Us)
3. Chronic Doesn’t Mean Constant Crisis
4. Redefining Stability in Midlife
5. Living Inside a Body That Requires Ongoing Attention
6. Living Forward Without Waiting to be “Fixed”

What We’re Taught to Believe About Health (And Why It Fails Us)

From an early age, we’re taught to think about health as something you earn. If you eat the right foods, follow the right routines, and show enough discipline, your body is supposed to cooperate. Illness, in this framework, becomes a personal failure, a sign that you didn’t try hard enough or didn’t do things correctly. This way of thinking is especially damaging as we age, because it leaves no room for bodies that change, conditions that persist, or realities that don’t resolve on a neat timeline. When health is treated like a moral achievement instead of a living relationship, anyone whose body requires ongoing care is set up to feel like they’ve done something wrong simply by existing.

I guess, somewhere along the way, I kind of figured that your health was a lot liking advancing a character in a video game. The more experience you have, the better your health will be. Some of that holds the smallest amount of truth, the decisions you make about your life can drastically impact your health, just like a video game character. But, this mindset doesnt often help those of us in dealing with our health after 40. As we age, so do our bodies, needs, and abilities. We have to learn to adapt to those changes if we hope to succeed.  That means we need to stop looking at illness as a failure or a lack of discipline, sometimes it is just how the cookie crumbles and we are left to put the pieces back together. 

As Queer men, we have to learn that our aging bodies need constant care and often care that is very much different than our heterosexual counterparts. We often feel left alone in our health, so we tend to keep our chronic conditions as invisible to the rest of the world, and, yes, even ourselves.

We’re taught to chase health like a finish line, not live it like a practice. Meaning, we have to tend to it, each and every day. We have to learn to adapt to any illness we may get, whether it be chronic or short term. To advocate for our health and well being as much as we advocate for our place in this world. To be seen and heard by our doctors. This is what treating it like a practice means.

Chronic Doesn’t Mean Constant Crisis

”Your results have come back and there are signs that indicate you have Cirrhosis.” Said the doctor as I stood in line at the pharmacy to pick up a prescription they had given me a couple hours earlier. For a brief moment, the world stopped, my vision darkened at the periphery, and I felt like my world had ended. I had grown up seeing what cirrhosis can do to a person and the type of people it affects. At first, I was in disbelief. There was no way it could be me, I wasnt an alcoholic, I didnt hang out in bars all the time, nor was I a drug user. These were all things I thought cirrhosis was, a chronic disease that will kill you because you made bad choices. To me, chronic equaled death. Boy, did I have a lot to learn.

To put it simply, chronic is a condition that is ongoing and not curable. Arthritis is a good example of a chronic condition. It causes consistent or recurring pain and swelling and cannot be cured. The best you can do is manage the symptoms and try to stop it from getting worse. These are your new operating orders.

I get it, these things can cause all sorts of anxiety and that is its own chronic condition. Now, I spend a lot of time looking at information on what I take, eat, or do and how it may or may not affect my disease. I worry that If I change one element of my exercise routine or diet, suddenly, I will become more sick or return to where I was before all of these changes. And all of this must be done while maintain the appearance of being “fine.” I worry because if I dont appear fine, people will see me as complaining or asking for sympathy. It is a lot to deal with.

Now, in the years since my diagnosis, what I have learned is that chronic doesnt equal death, it just means ongoing… like my treatment.  Some days will be really good, I can get all of my exercise done, follow my diet, keep my weight in check and everything else. But sometimes I need a more quiet day. Maybe today I am more tired than normally and it means I need to give myself some freedom to just do nothing, that the constant worry isn’t going to give my any better advantage than just doing what I have been doing. Things change and so do you. Your energy levels will vary day to day and sometimes you cant do all the things you have been doing. Guess what, that is okay and just as helpful as staying on course. 

Remember this important fact, not every doctor visit is going to be perfect, Your condition is going to change, constantly. Stressing to follow every rule at every moment isnt going to make it all better. You dont need to guilt yourself for missing a workout or eating something you shouldn’t. We are not machines, we cannot simply exchange a broken part for a new one and you cannot force biology. You can do everything every doctor asks you and you could die tomorrow. You could ignore everything you hear and are told and could live to be 110. What I am saying is that there are more factors to biology than some plan you have worked out with your doctor on the best way to come at this disease. You are changing constantly and so will your plans. Give yourself space to do what needs to be, give yourself enough space to enjoy life, also.

Redefining Stability in Midlife

When you’re living with a chronic condition in midlife, stability stops meaning “nothing is wrong” and starts meaning “nothing is being ignored.” Chronic illness in midlife doesn’t ask for perfection or constant improvement, it asks for attention, flexibility, and honesty. Stability isn’t the absence of symptoms or the return to some imagined version of health from the past. It’s knowing what your body can handle today, recognizing when something is off, and responding with care instead of panic. In this way, managing chronic illness after 40 becomes less about control and more about relationship, an ongoing practice of noticing, adjusting, and staying engaged with your life as it is.

What makes this shift difficult is that we’re rarely taught to value this kind of steadiness. Health after 40 is often framed as a battle against decline, where success means appearing unchanged and failure means acknowledging limits. But redefining health in midlife means letting go of that binary altogether. Stability can look like predictability rather than progress, or sustainability instead of intensity. It can mean building routines that bend instead of break, planning life around capacity rather than expectation, and trusting that living well with a chronic condition is not a compromise, it’s a skill. For many of us, this is the moment when chronic illness management stops being about “getting better” and starts being about living forward with clarity and self-respect.

Living Inside a Body That Requires Ongoing Attention

This April will mark five years since my initial diagnosis with Cirrhosis. Everyday I learn something new about this disease and how it relates to my body. Every month there is a new doctor I meet or a new test I have to do. I watch the amount of water, sodium, sugar, and other items, daily. I have to adapt my workout routines to meet the needs of my body as it changes. Then there is all of the bloodwork I take every three to six months, scans, and procedures so that the doctors know what my health is like. Every one of those takes its toll on you, over time. 

I need to eat enough to keep my body fueled for the day without eating too much. That turns to fat and then gets stored around organs and under the skin, all of which is bad for cirrhosis. I have to work out to keep muscle tone up and weight off but have to balance that with the correct amount of calories to offset the energy expenditure.  And then there is the issue with getting enough rest, whether that simply means sleep or much deeded downtime. Each of them is like a meeting with a bunch of people who all demand things but fail to realize how their needs are interdependent on the rest of the system. 

Dont get me wrong, there have been amazing benefits from all of this focus. I am in some of the physical shape that I have ever been in. At the end of last year, I was running fifteen miles a week. Finding out I had cirrhosis allowed me to incorporate health and wellbeing into my daily life. I put my health and the number one priority to all other things, that includes mental, as well as physical health. 

If I can share a few lessons I have and am still learning, it would be these:

1. Rest is as important as action – giving yourself time to recover from all the stress you are enduring goes a long wat in maintaining your wellbeing. It is okay to take time off to just relax and rest, it will not impact your overall health or condition.
2. Attention to the details is not equal to obsession – in the early days, I would spend hours researching everything possible, in relation to cirrhosis. Keeping a check on what your blood levels are, what you eat, and how much you work out are important to keeping you healthy but obsessing on them can lead to extra stress that is just as bad to your wellbeing. 
3. Care is not fear – whether this is coming from your own care about your treatment process or outside, from others, it does not mean they are afraid you are going to die today, tomorrow, or two months from now. Caring is just that, compassion about a fellow human going through this meat grinder called life. 

It is your life, you need to be healthy to stay healthy. Learn to take those precious moments, do the things you always wanted to do, and say the things to your loved ones, that you always meant to say. There is plenty of time for worry, later. Just focus on being healthy, for now.

Living Forward Without Waiting to be “Fixed”

Living with a chronic condition in midlife has taught me that waiting to be “better” can quietly turn into waiting to live. When health after 40 becomes framed only around recovery or improvement, it’s easy to put meaning, joy, and connection on hold, promising ourselves we’ll return to them once things stabilize. But long-term illness and aging don’t operate on that timeline. Stability isn’t a destination you arrive at and rest inside; it’s something you practice while life continues to move forward around you. Managing health in midlife means learning how to live with uncertainty instead of postponing your life until it disappears, because for many of us, it never fully does.

Uncertainty is a part of life as much as chronic illness are often super scary to deal with. Learning to not let those fears decide out actions and reaction is the best lesson we can learn. The one consistent thing I have seen is that change is constant. The labs that by doctors have me do today are different than they were when I was diagnosed in 2021. I am just as sure that next year they will change again, as new issues are found. All I can do is learn to roll with it and adapt as new choices come up. That is the true face of stability. 

What about you guys? What lessons has your health taught you, in your 40s and above, that you didnt worry about when you were younger? What chronic illness has changed your life and how did you adapt to it. Let me know in the comments below. Thanks to each and everyone of you that share GayintheCLE with me. You guys see into my life in the windows I create for you and I only hope that what I share will help you in some way. Thank you again, for being a part of this community.