Beautiful Pain

"Not again," I whimpered. I doubled over with the pain. In that moment, I think I finally broke. My spirit matched my body. I stared up at the blue, crocheted pot holder we had hanging up on the bathroom wall. I recall the chevron pattern clearly, although most of my other memories from that time are far and few in-between now. I remember asking God to just take me then and there. I didn't care where I was going in the afterlife, I just needed the pain to stop. All hope of relief dissolved with the next wave.

Life became one of those cycles. You know the one. The one you want so desperately to escape, but there are no exits. You're just stuck on loop while everything else spins by. That's how I was feeling, except my cycle was the toilet bowl.

By now I'm sure you're asking yourself what the point of this story even is. To be honest, while I was writing it, I wasn't so sure, myself. I just knew I had things to say and a platform to do it on. Now, I think this is more of a community support post than anything. Encouragement. We all need it, don't we? So here we are.

There I was. Curled into the fetal position on the floor, crying, and feeling sorry for myself. I didn't know why this was happening. I knew I had done some regretful things in my twelve years of life, but I didn't see how those actions could have merited the kind of agony I was in. It was a daily event by that point. For about ten hours a day, I would be writhing around the bathroom floor. I slept the rest of the time, when the insomnia wasn't keeping me up. I weighed about eighty pounds when my thirteenth birthday rolled around. The only things I could ingest with minimal pain were fish, broth and sometimes plantains, but I barely ate. I felt like a shell. I was sleeping on my Mom's bedroom floor, on a couple cushions we took off of the livingroom couch. I remember changing my clothes one night and realizing I hadn't taken a shower in almost a year. I was afraid to do anything for fear of becoming sick in the middle of it. I was, you could say, the picture of pathetic.

Whenever I bring this time up to my Mom, she says she remembers that I was always cheerful. I struggle to believe that, where I only really remember being depressed and somewhat suicidal. My diary entries back that up. But I digress. I think that eventually, everyone is given a choice. You either give up, or you soldier on. I'm not sure how I got through that time the way that I did, but I do remember believing that the experience was making me a better, stronger person.

It's funny because people usually equate pain to weakness. Have you ever seen the look a boss will give their employee for calling out sick because they have a fever? You're expected to tough through it. Sometimes it's impossible to do that. Like when you're on the floor wondering if this will be the last time for today, or if you need to call out *again*. Personally, I'm about as useless at work as I am at home, in that situation. Zero productivity - unless we can count memorizing the whole shampoo bottle label. You get used to people telling you that it "isn't that bad", or that you're being dramatic. You get used to people not believing you and being accused of making it up for attention. I don't know about anyone else, but it's difficult to keep a lie going for more than two weeks before the maintenance becomes more burdensome than just telling the truth. Especially one as exhausting as this.

Nowadays I'm doing a whole lot better, but now I face other difficulties. Like dating when I can't eat out, or feeling anxious about switching jobs because I don't know if I can handle it. IBD has left me with permanent colon damage, so even just getting a little too upset after an argument can set me off. People have broken up with me over the fact that I can't eat out. People have told me I'm high maintenance because of it. I have lost a lot because of this illness, but I have also gained a lot.

Resilience. Perseverance. Empathy. Compassion. Emotional independence.

You don't HAVE to let your illnesses get in the way of living. They might alter the way you experience it, sure, but you don't EVER have to give all the power to your struggles. You have the power to decide what you do. I realize that can be difficult but you know you can do anything you set your mind to.