💜 LIVING WITH A BODY THAT DOESN’T ALWAYS COOPERATE 💜
A slightly different blog post from me today. Rather than a glimpse at new chapters or my books 📚, I thought it would be good to give you a little glimpse behind the books.
I’ve lived with scoliosis and lordosis since I was a teenager, and then came Functional Neurological Disorder (FND), and finally Ulcerative Colitis (UC). If there’s one thing I’ve learned over the years, it’s that my body doesn’t always follow the story I had planned for it.
And I don’t pretend it’s always easy. There are days when my body has other plans: pain, fatigue, bowel symptoms, neurological symptoms, back pain and sometimes excruciating joint aches. Then there’s the slightly ridiculous guessing game of which condition is responsible for causing this today? 🤷♀️
There are really frustrating days when I have to change plans, slow down, or admit that actually, I need to rest. But there are lots of good days too. It’s definitely not all doom and gloom. ☀️
There are days when I write ✍️. There are days when I teach. There are days when I laugh until my stomach hurts for entirely the right reasons rather than all the wrong ones! 😂 There are family days, ordinary days, exciting days, and days when my various conditions get put on the back burner for five minutes while I simply get on with being me.
I’ve learned that living with chronic illness doesn’t mean putting your life on hold. Sometimes I have to do things differently. Sometimes I have to listen to my body rather than my diary. I’m still learning where my limits are — and occasionally I completely ignore them at first, get it wrong, and learn the hard way! 🙈
But I’m still me. 💜 I still write. I still teach. I’m still a wife and mum. I still make plans, dream up stories and find things to laugh and smile about. And I’m definitely still coming up with far more book ideas than I have time to write. 📚😂
I wanted to share this because so many people out there live with chronic illness, and so much of it can be invisible. We see people’s smiles, achievements and happy moments without always seeing what they’re carrying behind them.
And if you’re reading this while navigating your own diagnosis, I hope you know this: your story doesn’t end with a diagnosis. It just changes. 💜
You adapt. You keep finding joy. You keep finding purpose and reasons to look forward. 🌅 I’m still writing, I’m still teaching, and both of those things continue to bring me so much joy.
My conditions? Yes, they’re very much part of my story. But they don’t get to be the whole story. 📖💜
And if sharing a little bit of mine gives someone else some hope or inspiration today, then job done. 🥰
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