Crohn’s Story: Part 1

I have Crohn’s and I want to write about it. And it just so happens that this week (1–7 December) is Crohn’s and Colitis Awareness Week. I’ve wanted to write about my experience with Crohn’s and express what I feel about it for a long time but I’ve never quite known how to. I’ve dripped things out on social media over the years. But I’ve always sanitised the experience, worried that people wouldn’t get it, or what the reaction would be if I was too honest about what it’s really like. My family and friends know about it of course, but they’ve only known what I let out because I don’t always know how to bring it up.

This feels self-indulgent but necessary

I’ve spoken to my therapist and journalled a lot about it though over the last year or so and that’s given me the confidence to share this. For so long it’s been something that’s too big to be talk about, which has never sat right with me because it’s shaped me in fundamental ways.

That’s not to say it defines me. Not at all. I manage my condition like a pro actually. I own it. And every day I try to be positive and live life to the fullest despite it (not that I always succeed! But I try).

But it affected me in my formative years as a teenager in ways I’m just starting to understand fully. As I explore what impact the physical pain, shame and embarrassment I felt daily in secondary school had on me, I begin to understand myself more. It also affects me in a significant way today as I live with a stoma (I poo into a bag)…