If you smile, the world smiles back

I'm trying my best to be a more positive person...I'm finding it pretty difficult by the way! It's not that I don't wan to be positive, I do, it's more the fact that the world is a pretty rotten place. I have this thing where whenever I think I'm beginning to be happy and everything is just folding together nicely, it goes to shit.

Take my Crohn's for example. I have months of not having a flare and feeling good about my situation. Stool samples are normal and blood tests come back with the right numbers. Stomach pain is at a minimum and my achey joints aren't too inconvenient and then BOOM. Flare. Just when I didn't need it. I was so content with not having to deal with the crap (literally) of Crohn's and then here we are again, back at square one.

Another example is the whole mental health thing. I don't have bad days as often anymore because I think I may have figured out how to work around the black hole that is my brain, but there is always the loop in the distance that is just begging to drag me back to hell. A tiny little voice at the moment can sound like a thousand screaming monsters in my head on a bad day. I can't hear myself think and as I said previously, I get dragged back to hell.

However, my motivations for smiling my way through the day include;

• Payday!
• My dog.
• The love in my mum's eyes when I smile (she gets that proud parent shimmer in her eye whenever me or my brother come home and don't scream the house down in rage).
• The fact that I have such a good support network around me of friends and family that remind me that I have no reason to get angry or upset over the stupid little things. 

I've learnt to be thankful for what I have and for those who help me and that's what gets me through the tough days. If you have people who love you then you are one of the luckiest people on the planet, and that is something to be happy about.

So smile once in a while, the sun will seem brighter, the hugs will seem cosier and everything will be better.

I need to get this off my chest

I want to talk about something really important. Maybe the most important thing I will ever talk about in this blog. I want to talk about my mental health.

I'm going to be straight up, I'm not in a good place. I'm struggling. It's all getting a little too much. I know I can get through it, the fog in my mind will have to clear up eventually I guess. I just need to stay focused on what's important in my life and not get distracted. I CANNOT lose that focus.

A friend quite recently said to me, "you have so much shit to deal with on a daily basis, you're allowed a wobble every now and then." Those words spoke volumes to me. Even after everything that they have been through in their own life, they still took their time to help me through a hard time I was having- which in hide-sight, was nothing compared to the trials and tribulations they have had to face. They took the time and effort to help me, when they didn't have to. They talked me out of giving up and I will forever be in their debt.

Okay I need to stop putting it off.
This is a hard topic for me to talk about. I don't know why, I just can't find the right words to say.

I just want the world to stand still. I want to get off the ride. I need to take some time to breathe.

LET ME BREATHE.

My mind is just a blob. I'm confused. I don't know how to express the feelings that I'm feeling.

The worst all started a year ago when I had a really bad thing happen to me. I don't want to say what, but it was the worst things that will probably ever happen to me and I will have the memory of that terrible ordeal for the rest of my life. I couldn't comprehend how someone could do that to me, I still can't. However, the last few months have been extremely difficult for me. I haven't been able to stay focused on the important things. Everything has become scrambled and I can't see the light at the end of the tunnel.

I just want to feel okay again.

I don't really know how to describe how I'm feeling in words, expressing my emotions isn't a skill I'm good at! Most people around me don't even realise that I'm not the same person they think I am.  I put on this really bubbly act when inside I feel like the walls are caving in and everything is crumbling around me.

But it's okay that I feel this way. Everybody has good and bad days. Some days just turn in to weeks and sometimes those weeks turn in to months. I've tried to put on a brave face but the fake smile just isn't cutting it anymore! I need new tactics. Maybe one if them could be "CHILL THE F OUT!!!"
If you hadn't noticed I try and laugh as my owm missfourtunes because then nobody else can judge the way I personally deal with these tricky situations.

Anyway, life will hopefully get better soon. I have some good people around me who are supportive and understand. I try not to put too much strain on my parents, they've both got their own issues going on, never mind whatever's going on in my head!

But if any of you out there are having trouble, reach out. It could be to a teacher, a doctor, a family member or a friend. The ones who love you will always have your back.

Still looking for answers...

Yep, you read that right. It's been four years and I'm still no closer to knowing why I feel so rotten. The doctors don't know if it's the medication that I'm on, the fact that school is stressing me out or maybe I'm just that really annoying patient who gets all of the systems of a flare but there is NO medical evidence to prove that. I mean ZERO results have any trace of my inflammation levels being any higher than they should be. I've had an MRI, a Colonoscopy and and a Endoscopy as well as, what feels like a million and one blood tests- just to triple check that the lab hadn't missed anything.

I JUST WANT SOME BLOODY ANSWERS.

I want to know why I've been being sick four times a day even though I'm not eating enough to produce that much vomit. I want to know why when I'm not physically throwing up, it feels like I should be. I want to know why I need a nap for 24 hours of the day- everyday. And my main question is why do my body constantly to try and kill me? Like, I just want to eat chicken nuggets in peace without it feeling like I've been stabbed in the gut. Why chicken nuggets? Why couldn't my intestine not think broccoli was poison? 

I want to know my back feels like I've been piggy backing Jack Black all day. Like it flipping kills. It cracks everything I sit up straight and then gets stuck (that's VERY uncomfortable by the way!)

Don't get me wrong, I have an undying love for our NHS but I really just want someone to have a definitive answer for me. I know it's not their fault that my case is an absolute nightmare but wouldn't it be nice?

I am 100% aware that my situation is far from the worst case scenario, but over here in my own little pit of despair, it hurts. It feels like my life is being run by this disease and I don't want it to. I've had enough of being in the unknown about my own health. It's possibly the most annoying situation I've ever been in, and I grew up with an older brother! Yeah, this is even more annoying than him kicking my shins under the dinner table every night for three years. My level of annoyance has flown off the scale that my brother sits on!

It's nobody's fault that I've been put in this situation but at the moment, it feels like the world has a Vendetta against me. Why is this world making it so difficult for me to be able to do everything an eighteen year old should be able to do? I don’t have the energy at the end of the day to go out and party, I struggle keeping my eyes open for an entire day at school (and that’s only six hours- that’s a quarter of the day) I should be able to keep my eyes open for six hours! I want to be able to go on holiday with my friends and not have to worry about needing to go to the hospital and having to take all of my medications with me through customs- which is extremely hard to do with the amount of Codine that I get prescribed! Going out for a meal is even difficult if it’s to a restaurant that I have never been to before, not knowing if the food was going I have an explosive reaction in my intestine, making me really sick.  Basically, I’m a ninety year old lady, doing ninety year old lady things. I have two naps a day usually, I go to bed at 8 o’clcok, probably watched the majority of films on Netflix due to me not being able to get off the sofa and I drink tea all day. Some may think that sounds like I’m living the perfect life, trust me, it gets super boring.

I JUST WANT MY NON-INFECTED COLON BACK!!!

ANXIETY

So I suffer from anxiety. I don't know why it's taken me so long so admit it. I've just felt so ashamed for so long that I'd be judged or thought of as weak. It's possibly my biggest fear. I don't know how I would cope if people could see my walls crumble before me. Over the past four years, since the diagnosis of Crohn's, I've built some pretty strong walls in order for me to protect myself. I put on a brave face and get on with my day, if I don't have that brave face, what do I have to hide behind? I use it as my confidence, my coping mechanism for all the bull**** that the world has thrown my way over the years. And not going to lie, my fake smile is getting pretty fool proof, if I don't say so myself!

If I'm having a bad week I could have three or four a day attacks a day. What happens ranges from crying fits to shortage of breathe. My latest attack felt my body had shut down, I felt paralyzed. I didn't know what to do. I just froze. I mean, I can normally assume that they're going to happen but this last one, it just showed up, it really was an attack! I couldn't see it coming. I have no idea what bought it on, or how i managed to calm myself down afterwards but I somehow did. Normally, when i feel an attack coming I put my earphones in and take a walk, I remove myself from the situation that  made me anxious and calm down quite quickly but this particular attack didn't give me that option. I was an absolute mess. All I could see was a mass of blackness. I felt like I was trapped in a whole on my own with no way out. It all got a little too much and I guess my mind just cracked. I subconsciously gave up on myself and let the hurt slip through the cracks of that wall I had built.

Anxiety is a weird thing to have. It's actually really difficult to put in to words. I find it hard to explain simply because there are so many ways a panic attack can affect someone. Sometimes the attacks are visible, sometimes they are not. Sometimes the attack allows you to think of a way out, sometimes not. It's different for every person and every attack.

I wish I knew how to 100% control my panic and anxiousness but I can't at the moment. I can only assume when they are going to slowly creep up on me. It sucks, I know, but you have to remember all of the coping mechanisms that you have for yourself. Whether that be going for a walk or listening to a particular "calming down" Spotify playlist. As long as you are able to understand that these attacks are going to happen at points in your life, you'll learn to control your own panic.

As long as you are content with yourself and you know who you are, you'll get through this. You are NEVER alone.