Illness and Sunday Scaries

Chronic illness has a way of dismantling the scaffolding of the day. The routines that once held time in place, the commute, the meetings, the errands, the steady obligations, begin to fall away, and what remains can feel unstructured and vulnerable. Many patients tell me that without the busyness that once organized their hours, which I also know from my personal experience, the day stretches out in a way that feels unsettling. It is similar to the Sunday scaries, that restless feeling when the weekend fades and something undefined looms ahead, except it lingers without the relief of Monday morning structure. When illness reduces capacity, it often reduces distraction too, leaving more space for uncertainty, for rumination, for the ache of not knowing what the day is for. Learning to live in this less defined space becomes its own task, one that asks for intention, gentleness, and a reimagining of what a meaningful day can look like when the old scaffolding is gone.