THE HERO LIFE OF SICKNESS
By Cindy Finch, LCSW
There’s a special kind of hell called "Sick and Symptomatic but Devoid of Diagnosis." If you know, you know. If you’re living it, I want to say this right out of the gate:
It. Is. Brutal.
It’s the kind of life where you walk into the clinic with level 8 pain, they run every test, scan your organs, tap your veins, and still look at you with that shrug: “Everything looks normal. Maybe it’s anxiety? Have you tried Zoloft?”
You are a question mark in a world that wants periods.
And without a name for what you’re facing, there is no roadmap, no treatment plan, no coordinated support group. Just you, in a hallway of closed doors, trying to explain your suffering to people who’ve already stopped listening.
This is where you learn to paddle.
Unnamed Doesn’t Mean Unreal
In a culture that worships certainty and solution, being undiagnosed can make you feel like a fraud. But here’s the truth: Just because no one can name your pain doesn’t mean it’s not real. Your body knows. Your soul knows. And if you’ve been stranded on the shoreline of your life—too sick to swim, too undiagnosed to get pulled into the rescue boat—you know.
But your life doesn’t have to stop because no one can explain what’s happening.
Instead, it might just be time to become your own hero.
Before we dive into tools, let me tell you where I’ve been:
One doctor told me I must just be carrying my baby high—like, in my collarbones. I’d come in for chest pain. I went numb with disbelief. Are you shitting me right now? Another doctor misdiagnosed me for months, handing me Tylenol and amoxicillin like candy. No upper-end tests. No second looks. By the time he realized something serious was going on, he called 911 to the back door of his strip mall office and told me to find someone to pick up my three kids—one newborn, one toddler, and one preschooler—because I had to be rushed to the hospital.
What the actual fuck?
That’s how I ended up in oncology. A biopsy. An urgent meeting with the head of cancer at the hospital. He said, “Stop breastfeeding by tomorrow and come back Monday—or you’ll be dead in a week.” It was Friday.
Later, I was discharged too early—before a county doctor read my CT scan. At home, the tumor imploded. I sat upright, barely breathing, my chest tight, my skin soaked in panic sweat, drowning in my own body, scared and crying, but refusing to go back to the hospital. Then my newborn son Brandon cried. That cry pulled us up, and we saw a message on the answering machine: “Return immediately to the hospital to save your life.”
Grace came in the form of my baby’s cry.
After that, I stopped looking in mirrors. I told my husband Darin, “I want my regular girl back. I don’t even know who I am anymore.” I looked like a pre-pubescent boy. No lashes, no eyebrows, no curves. We didn’t have sex for a year. I hated my body. I felt like it had betrayed me, one part at a time. At 31, I missed the height of my sexual self. At 37, I had massive surgeries and couldn’t walk to the mailbox. I’d done sprint triathlons and long bike rides—and suddenly I was using a walker and full-time oxygen inside my own home.
I remember wailing in the night while Darin stood holding our newborn, whispering through tears, “I hope you get to know your mom someday.”
We were newlyweds. He had married me with two little kids. We had Brandon. Then cancer. He adopted my children while I was bald in chemo. We sat in a judge’s chambers, the kids on the judge’s lap, while he pronounced us a family.
Shame, rage, grief. And then: rebirth.
Tool 1: Develop a Teflon Mind
When you’re living in the mystery of chronic symptoms with no label, your mind can become your biggest enemy. It clings to every insensitive comment, every ghosted friendship, every rolled eye from a dismissive nurse practitioner.
Mindfulness teachers call this “Velcro mind.” Everything sticks.
But what if you could switch to Teflon?
Teflon mind is the art of letting things slide off you. The unreturned calls. The friend who ducks down the Target aisle when she sees you. The way your partner zones out when you try to explain your latest flare-up. Teflon doesn’t mean you’re numb. It means you’re wise. It’s not denial. It’s a trauma-informed strategy for survival.
Here’s what it sounds like:
"They don’t get it. That doesn’t mean my pain isn’t real. That just means they’re not my people for this part of the journey."
You can use that energy elsewhere—on healing, rest, advocacy, or even joy.
Tool 2: Pick the Fruit Where It’s Ripe
– Go where the grace is growing
If you’re used to getting support from your people when life goes sideways, this part is going to sting. Chronic, undiagnosed illness scares people. They can’t fix it. They don’t understand it. And humans, being the comfort junkies we are, often choose avoidance over empathy.
So they ghost. Or worse, they blame.
You might need to let go of expecting the old people to show up in new ways. Instead, go where the fruit is ripe.
Lean into poetry, prayer, and art.
Find others living in the Mystery.
Let music hold what words can’t.
Create a sacred space where your healing doesn’t require outside validation.
And stop begging people to show up who’ve already shown you they can’t.
This is not bitterness. It’s boundaries.
Try this: “Even though I’m sick, I still…” Finish that sentence five times. Then read it out loud. That’s your strength, speaking.
Tool 3: Become a Superhero
You want to know the secret of people who survive unspeakable things?
They become someone new.
This kind of long-haul mystery suffering will break you—but it will also shape you. And if you let it, it will turn you into someone powerful, unshakable, and deeply needed in this world.
Because here’s the thing: People of depth are in short supply. Our culture is flooded with loudness, but not much strength. And the ones who walk through fire without an applause line? They become the quiet anchors for others who are still burning.
One day, someone will need what you’re learning right now. And you’ll be the one who shows up, sits close, and says: “You’re not crazy. I believe you.”
That’s superhero stuff.
Like my friend Kyla Redig—diagnosed with breast cancer at 24. She survived the unthinkable and went on to create an Amazon documentary called Vincible about what it means to be a young adult living with cancer in the prime of life, when you’re supposed to be invincible.
That’s the kind of hero you become.
You may be sick. You may be undiagnosed. But you are not undone.
You are just becoming. Keep paddling.
These days, I’m fit. In love. A therapist. An author. A survivor. I’ve helped thousands. And I just became a grandma. Every day I wake up and breathe, it’s a win.
Want more support?
Download the Make an Epic Comeback workbook: [Insert Link]
Explore the book When Grief Is Good: [Insert Link]
Join our upcoming classes and community: [Insert Link]
With you,
Cindy Finch, LCSW
www.cindyfinch.com
cinfinch@gmail.com
Cindy Finch, LCSWis a clinical therapist, writer and professor who trained at Mayo Clinic. She works closely with those in the margins and is a survivor of an undiagnosed disease that turned out to be cancer while she was pregnant. Treatments for her cancer led to heart, liver and lung failure which she survived. She now lives in Orange County, CA and enjoys her life with her husband Darin and their three children. Along with other young survivors, her story is a part of a new documentary film called Vincible.
The information provided in this column should not be used for diagnosing or treating a physical or mental health problem, disease, or condition. If you have or suspect you have a medical or psychological problem, please consult your medical doctor or psychologist or appropriate health care provider. If you think you have a medical or psychological emergency, call 911 immediately
