Love may feel complicated when you live with a chronic neurological condition.

If your body or brain feels unpredictable, you might not feel particularly loving toward anyone, especially yourself.

Maybe you miss the version of you who could keep up. Maybe self-care has slipped. Maybe you’re carrying guilt about your kids, your friends, your coworkers, your siblings. Or just… you.

This post is an invitation to set that down for a minute. Not to go back to “before,” but to look at who you are now (across every role you hold) and find ways to be kinder to that person.

Our care coaches walk patients through this every day. Here’s what they come back to, role by role.

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Your relationship with your care team

It is stunning how this can impact everything else in life.

Chronic illness often means feeling dismissed, rushed, or like you're "too much." We've all had that appointment where we leave feeling smaller than when we walked in. That's the opposite of care.

Do not accept that.

Our providers (many of whom live with migraine, epilepsy, or are parenting through neurological conditions themselves) shared what care should actually feel like:

‍"People just want to be heard and seen." - Carrie Berry, Care Coach‍

"We treat patients like we'd treat our own family." - Trevor Wright, NP, General Neurology‍

"It's not your fault. Nothing you did wrong." - Dr. Clinton Lauritsen, Headache specialist‍

"You deserve a toolbox for real daily life." - Dr. Jennifer Chima, Headache specialist‍

"We're your advocate, explaining the why." - Leslie Carroll, NP, Gen Neuro, Stroke sub-specialist‍

"You are a person first, not just a condition." - Jackie McLees, Care Coach

Real care listens, collaborates, and builds tools for actual life.

Ask yourself now: Are you settling? Are you happy with your care team? Do you feel supported?

Walk away from “care teams” who just prescribe, lecture, and give you textbook advice.

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Loving yourself as a parent

Parenting through flares means grieving a version of yourself that you imagined; the always-on, always-energized parent who never misses a thing. The reality is couch cuddles instead of the park, survival screen time, and backup plans for the backup plans.

Our coaches guide parents toward a few shifts.

1. "Swap 'I’m failing them' for 'I’m doing my best today.' Those are not the same sentence, and the second one is true." - Care Coach Jackie McLees
2. Let other people help: partners, family, childcare, and meal delivery. Let your kids pitch in when it’s age-appropriate. They’re more capable than you think, and being part of the team teaches them something important.
3. And on days when you do feel okay? Not every good moment has to be spent on chores. Some of those moments can just be. Your kids will remember the good moments, not the perfect ones.

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Loving yourself as a friend or family member

Do you feel flaky, unreliable, like you’re the only one who’s always bailing?

The people who matter always understand. And the ones who don’t aren’t your people (even if they are family).

Our coaches encourage patients to be honest upfront. Let yourself receive help through rides, reschedules, and check-in texts.

Let joy be small: a phone call from bed, a meme thread that makes you laugh, a 30-minute hangout instead of a whole evening, just sitting together in silence (even if it is over Zoom or a phone call). There's always a way to adapt quality time.

Would you love your friend or family less if they were in your place?

Loving yourself as a worker

For many of us, work is intertwined with our sense of worth. When symptoms shrink your hours, shift your role, or force accommodations, it’s easy to spiral into “I’m not enough.”

Our coaches help patients redefine what success looks like based on what is realistic and meaningful now. This could mean

1. Taking the breaks your body is asking for without guilt.
2. "Delegating instead of doing everything solo." - Care Coach Jackie McLees
3. Spending good days doing what you’re excited about instead of catching up.

Showing up is an achievement!

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Loving yourself as just... you

You cannot pour from a depleted cup, and you don’t have to earn rest by being productive enough first.

Care coaches Carrie Berry and Jill Deneau keep coming back to two questions: “How are you caring for yourself right now?” and “What are you doing for joy right now?” It doesn’t have to be huge or Instagrammable.

Joy doesn’t have to dazzle. A book. A song. A hobby you pick up and put down. A bath. A nap. Love Island binge. Small is enough. Small is actually the point.

Chronic self-criticism keeps your nervous system in a stress response, which means more cortisol, more inflammation, and more flare-ups. The guilt loop can worsen the very symptoms you're trying to manage.

"Self-compassion is a different language." - Care Coach, Carrie Berry

Research shows it actually lowers cortisol levels, reduces inflammation markers, and helps regulate the same nervous system that chronic criticism keeps firing up.

When you stop punishing yourself for being sick, your body gets a little more room to heal. Here’s what it looks like in practice:

1. "Talking to yourself the way you’d talk to a friend." - Care Coach Jackie McLees

1. Setting boundaries around your energy instead of apologizing for having limits
2. Asking for help out loud instead of suffering silently and hoping someone notices.
3. Letting go of perfection and understanding that prioritizing your health is not selfish. It never was.

Beneath every role (parent, friend, sibling, worker, patient), there’s a person who deserves care just for existing.

None of this happens overnight. Grief and progress can coexist.

Our team is here to walk with you on your journey to rewrite how you love yourself.

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