I lost count of the number of times someone offered me a solution to this illness. While I do understand that their intentions were good, there is this lack of information regarding chronic immune diseases, and to the open public, this makes room for unnecessary judgment and unfair assumptions.
My immune system attacks itself and in long-term, the reality is grim.
There are a couple of stages of having an autoimmune disease that no amount of yoga or positivity can resolve it. Positive thinking, in itself, isn’t enough for my body to heal, but it does its job in comforting my mind so I can at least give credit for that.
It took me years to understand this cluster of features that this disease has to offer and there are still days when I fell trapped in second-guessing my symptoms. It's unpredictable and downright scary. One might call it a refined psychological torture when you keep hoping that you will eventually prevail. Finding myself poorly prepared for the prejudices that come and harm me.
When we talk about an illness that can be "manageable", the majority of people that don't deal with this, might assume that it's something that you can live by, something that will get better in time. At times, any rational argument I may have will be lost in the vast sea of magic voodoo cures. You spend half of the time trying to outsmart the disease and half of the time explaining to ludicrous people that eating kale, although healthy, won't fix the problem.
In my own mind, the plan is that the more detached and lighthearted I act, I will somehow bend the reality and instead of working against me, my body will work with me.
This may seem risky and naive, but I believe that if you are in agreement with your body, then you will know what works best for you. Taking one day at a time, one hour at a time and sometimes, one step at a time. Applying this principle in my life, worked in other areas and I guess only time will tell if this thing really is indeed beneficial or that my genetics have a dark humor and will come back to kick me in the shins when I least expect it.
Instead of wallowing myself in despair, I now treat this illness as a huge life lesson that will eventually kill me. I've seen better days and I've seen worse and in all honesty, I learned more from my bad days that from my good ones. Trying my very best to process negative feedback and learn from the experience instead of relying on denial and repression. The ability to shift from one mood to another, and just like building myself a safe system, I am trying my very best to adapt constructively.
I'm young and I'm battling a chronical illness and oddly, I feel at peace.
