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Showing posts with the label Acceptance

The Trouble with Pep Talks

The scene: You're sitting on a comfy couch having a conversation with a good friend or a family member. Someone you're very close to. Maybe you're having a cup of coffee/tea or a glass of wine. It's been a good night of sharing with someone you trust. The issue you're talking about doesn't necessarily have to be Crohn's, but let's say it is. You're feeling comfortable, so you are very honest about your experience. You decide it's okay, just for a moment, to let go of that tone of optimism you normally adopt when speaking about your disease. It's not that you've actually given up hope, you're just tired. After you finish your tale, your friend/family member looks at you lovingly and says something like, "you're the strongest person I know" or, my personal favorite, "it'll just make you stronger in the end." I've been trying to write this post for a while now, and I've been having a lot of troub...

The First Thing They Should Tell You

It's been way too long. Sorry about that. Life post-graduation has kind of thrown me for a loop. But I'm back and I'll be writing more often now. So, without further ado... I recently decided to participate in National Novel Writing Month . I'm writing about, you guessed it, a young woman coming to terms with her chronic illness. The novel itself isn't coming along very quickly, but the process of writing has inspired some interesting thoughts about Crohn's and my personal process of dealing with my disease. So, I've come up with this list of the first things they should tell you when you're diagnosed. I'm not sure who "they" is. I'm not even that concerned with who it is. The idea is more about the message than the delivery. Here's what I've come up with. The first thing they should tell you...   ...is that this isn't going away, your life will be different from now on.   I know, that's inherent in the...