One person I met referred to her illness as "a friend who has come to teach me great truths". Calling her illness a "friend" helped her lessen the fear of her situation because she never had a friend whom she feared. She associated her friends with love, joy and trust, and by thinking of her illness as a friend, she felt that she could communicate with it. She felt it would leave her when their time together was complete (..).

(Caroline Myss "Why People Don't Heal and How They Can")