# This changed the way I thought a bit



## dreday (May 4, 2007)

LOOk, I'm still negative and just as depressed as everyone, so don't laugh at me if this sounds lame or irrelvant. Im not great at this. My therapist who is overseeing my bio and neuro feedback treatment for my anxiety and stress(to reduce my constant D) gave me two books to read. One of them I haven't started, and the other I am in the first chapter and already I'm a bit changed from it. It's called :Living with Chronic Illness -Days of PATIENCE AND passion.Cheesy I know. but w/e. I guess this is mostly directed to the people like me who fear fear fear everything because of this, and stop living because of the problem. Hating it and hating ourselves. I'm still trying to get out of the stage.the first chapter taught me that omg hey its a horrible illness that I will always have maybe, but there are many many illnesses like that. Like M.S. or heart disease etc. Of course int he book, gastrointestinal disorders was among the pretty bad ones, which is what we have, so it's in no way making light of our situation. But it also goes into the fact that in our lives, we always struggled. Struggle with humiliation, pain, depression, anxiety, and just plain sickness. We miss out on a lot an we get discouraged. Which is my problem too. But the book says that since we have been doing it for so long, it is actually our normal state. So if you're like me and you hate yourself or hate the illness, and hate how different you are, I guess we have to stop and think that it might be our natural state. Like, it just might be like this normally because our body was wired this way. But, only when we come to terms with it, when we say, "ok i have a chronic illness. now what do I do?" we live. when we have to leave early, we leave early. when we 're sick, we're sick. no apologies needed to people, we just have a more difficult time then others with how our bodies function and that's it. easier said then done. but i guess i was grieving for a couple months now that everything has gotten worse, and i realize i always had ibs-d and was always nervous and anxious all my life. i have been trying to hide away from everyone and hating myself and hating whoever gave me this problem. but i guess, all we can do is accept it as what we have to deal with and how we are. and try our very best not to let make fear our number one instinct. there are always going to be days when we forgot we have ibs-d and days when we feel like we can never go out. it's going to be normal for us, not a setback. we just have to try new meds, new treatments, and never expect a cure from this, because there is none, only trial and error with a problem we might always have. acceptance is the hardest part. i haven't gotten it down yet.


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## Jana21 (Jun 13, 2007)

Wow, I totally know what you mean. My problem really seemed to be anger at myself for not being able to deal/cope with this illness. I didn't think of it as an illness like MS or diabetes probably because while it's very painful/annoying/inconvenient it's not life threatening. Boy was I wrong. Due to I high level of stress at work, I started having panic attacks about a year ago; at that time I decided to seek help with a psychologist. She showed me that I needed to think of my IBS as an illness and that I was trying to control my body which was adding to my anxiety. Also, she asked me a really strange question, she asked if I had ever gotten angry over the fact that I had this illness or mourned that I had it. I've had IBS for 14 years, sure it sucks but did I ever get angry at it or mourn the fact that I had it, I don't think so.I'm going to take the advice of the book you're reading - this is my normal state and there is nothing wrong with me; why do I want to achieve the so called normal and be like everyone else.I've started reading a book called "You Can Heal Your Life" by Louise Hay and it discusses a lot of what you've listed in your post.


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## dreday (May 4, 2007)

yayyy! im so glad someone understood it. ya the book says you have to mourn the loss of your "normal" health. its necessary. and you probably will mourn it again when you have bad flare ups and its tottaly normal. reading the book makes you feel like, we are not alone, i am not alone. and there are sooo many illnesses out there that i never thought baout, and we are just trying to cope. ill look intot he book you're reading too if the message doesn't resinate enough with this one.


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## Jannybitt (Oct 13, 2006)

Thank you dreday for posting this. It was a very informative and thoughtful thing to do to take the time out and put something on here that gives others hope.


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