For living with serious or long-term illness, and for the people alongside you. Honest conversation about diagnosis, treatment, and everything after.
Serious illness reorganises your life around itself. There’s the medical side, and then there’s everything else — work, money, relationships, identity, and the strange social labour of managing other people’s reactions to your bad news.
This category is for all of that, and it’s as much for the people caring as the people ill.
What people talk about here
The disorientation of a serious diagnosis and where to even start. Treatment, side effects, and the long stretches of waiting. Deciding who to tell and how much. People who say the wrong thing, and the friends who quietly disappear. Grieving the life and the plans you had before — which is real grief, even though nobody has died. Work, income, and what happens when you can’t. Supporting someone you love through it without losing yourself entirely. Scans, results days, and the anxiety that clusters around them. And living well alongside something that isn’t going away.
Support beyond the forum
- healthdirect — Australian Government 24/7 health advice line. Call 1800 022 222.
- Carer Gateway — support for carers, including counselling and respite. Call 1800 422 737.
- Lifeline — 24/7 crisis support and suicide prevention counselling. Call 13 11 14.
- Beyond Blue — free 24/7 mental health support. Call 1300 22 4636.
How to use this category
Peer support here isn’t about fixing anything. Sometimes what’s needed is someone who knows what the waiting room feels like.
Please don’t offer treatment recommendations, alternative therapies, or survival statistics to other members. Two people with the same diagnosis can have completely different situations, and unsolicited numbers cause real distress. Talk about your own experience instead.
Carers: you’re welcome to be honest here about how hard it is. That isn’t disloyal.