Wow I don’t really know where to start to be honest! I have two chronic illnesses – ME/CFS and Endometrosis. I also have severe anxiety and borderline depression.
All of this has happened and been diagnosed within the last year (which has been a bit crazy to be honest) but it turns out I’ve had both invisible illnesses for a longggg time, probably since my early teens.
“I accepted that for the rest of my life I would be in constant pain, and be sick everyday”
I first started having health problems when I was about 14. At this point in my life I a lot of things seemed to happen within a few years – I started to get really bad period pain, I had glandular fever and my auntie passed away from cancer. Three separate things I can now track back to being the beginning of the mental and physical health problems I’ve experienced ever since. Looking back now i can follow it all back and put it all togeher of what it all meant and why things were happening, but at the time none of it made sense.
One of the biggest themes throughout my life has been stomach related problems, lots of sickness, problems with food, and lots and lots of pain. There’s been years when I’ve vomited almost every day, up to about 10 times or every time I ate or drank anything. I think maybe that’s one of the things that I struggled to explain to other people the most. My parents thought I had an eating disorder, and didn’t seem to understand when I’d say I’m not making myself sick I just have to be sick because the pain is so bad. Now I know I have a whole list of food allergies and intolerances, and a lot of the pain and sickness I was feeling was a mixture of my endometriosis and ME. Because these symptoms were so severe doctors always sent me down the gastroenterology route, and over the years I’ve had so many tests and been told so many times they were inconclusive or the doctors couldn’t find anything wrong that I just gave up. I accepted that for the rest of my life I would be in constant pain, and be sick everyday. Even now I’m sick at least once a week (at best). But where I am now is a lot lot better than I ever thought I would be.
The power of having a diagnosis and having someone tell you they understand your symptoms and know what’s wrong with you is nothing I could ever explain. It returns your faith in yourself. I’s amazing to know I can trust my own gut again.
This blog really is going to be a bit about my health journey but also a lot about my general life, just fun stuff that means a lot to me. I hope you’ll follow and enjoy my posts. Writing enables me to say things I never would be able to verbalise, so this blog is giving me freedom to lay the truth out there. I want to create a place where people feel they can be open and honest about what they are experiencing, so I hope you’ll all come along this journey with me. Hopefully it might help one person accept their own journey and learn to never give up on getting answers xx
It’s A Soph’s Life 
Great article thanks for sharing your story, I think the more we know we are not alone and share our experiences, the better. The words were a little hard to read on the purple background.
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Thank you very much for your comment. I totally agree, talking about our experiences and meeting people who understand has definitely made me feel less alone! Thank you for your feedback on the colours, I’m really new to all this to massively value people’s opinions! Hope you like the new colour! Thanks again, and I hope you continue to follow my journey on here, really appreciate you coming to my site and taking the time to read the post. Xx
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For all that you have been through with your health your loveliness and empathy match it!! So proud of you and how you handle everything and it’s so amazing that you’re telling your story and helping other people by doing so xxx
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