Sisterhood of the Traveling Pajama Pants

A little under a year ago, I was going through the chronic illness thing alone. Aside from twice-yearly gastroenterologist visits where I got my magic pills refilled, I rarely talked about having Crohn’s. Hell, sometimes I even forgot I had it. It was a magical time where I dated and danced and drank and ate nachos like there was no tomorrow.

But right around last Thanksgiving that all started to change. My magic pills stopped working. I was (attempting) to live my best Los Angeles life when my symptoms took on new levels of life-sucking. And then I ended up in a hospital a few miles from the beach wondering how things got so far from the life I’d imagined so damn quickly.

It was a few months later that I began blogging about my experiences with chronic illness. As a writer who was too distracted by my symptoms to think of much else, it seemed like a natural creative outlet for me–– and a great way to avoid ranting my loved ones’ ears off.

In the months since, my symptoms have gotten better, and then way worse, and then better again, and then worse, and then–– you get the idea. Life is a weird roller coaster, my particular ride just happens to involve more pain meds than the average. But the blog part of this crazy ride of life has actually brought me something really beautiful: the online chronic illness community.

Unless you’re a sick kid yourself, you probably aren’t aware that #Crohns and #ChronicIllness are super popular, active hashtags on instagram. #ChronicLife will get you a constant stream of results on Twitter. Facebook is full of private support groups for people with pretty much any kind of illness you can imagine.

I spent the first several years of my disease feeling pretty alone in it–– I didn’t know anyone in real life who had it, and all the articles I read online were full of stuffy medical jargon. Finding the little corner of the internet devoted to real people with the same problems I have has been comforting. If I’m having a bad day, one visit to the #Spoonie hashtag will net me dozens of people to commiserate with. If I’m having a good day, I can spread the positivity and love the same way.

Infusion day selfies are a thing, who knew

So while my last post may be about how the internet is ruining us, I also believe the inverse: the internet has brought me some really nice people who know better than anyone else how much of a celebration it is to taper off of prednisone, or how bad it sucks on days you feel like you don’t own enough heating pads.

And in fact, blogging about my situation has also opened my eyes up to the fact that I was previously mistaken–– I know plenty of people in real life who are dealing with chronic illness. They’re just doing it pretty quietly, the way I used to. I’ve had old middle school classmates reach out, family friends, people I met once at a party. And the thing is, even though we may have nothing else in common, having this one huge thing makes all the difference. It bonds us in a weird sisterhood (or brotherhood, hey dudes) of people who “get it.”

So to my fellow chronic illness-havers, out there, keep on keepin’ on. Keep sharing your stories of how to make Humira shots less painful and what foods you make that don’t rile up your intestines and what exercises are easy on your joints. Keep sharing pictures of you on good days playing with your cute dogs or out for drinks with friends or binging Netflix because you want to, not because you don’t have the energy for anything else.

Thanks for the constant reminder that no one is ever as alone as they might feel, and that the roller coaster has as many ups as it does downs.

***

In a bit of shameless self-promo, the lovely people of the online chronic illness community nominated me for a health activism award. If you feel so inclined, you can vote for me here. Leonardo DiCaprio and cute kittens everywhere will thank you.

I'm Bad At Keeping Secrets

I’m not someone who has many secrets–– clearly, considering my social media footprint is as big as a continent.

But I do have a few, like the level of embarrassing songs I sing while cleaning my house, or the 90’s celebrities I still occasionally have dreams about marrying. My biggest secret as of late? I’m feeling better.

You’re probably asking yourself why the hell that would be a secret. After 8+ months of Saturday nights in, a monumentally bloated face, and a diet more restrictive than Beyonce-inspired veganism, wouldn’t I want to shout “I’M FEELING BETTER” from the rooftops?

Other things that will make you feel better: new lipstick, dramatic hair changes.

Yes and no. I’m thrilled to be feeling better. I’m thrilled to be weaned off prednisone. But what most normal-health-functioning people don’t realize is that for the chronically ill, “better” is a spectrum. I don’t go from sick to well in a day flat. When I say “I’m feeling better,” it simply means that currently, I’m having more good days than bad days, which is something to celebrate.

But if I take that celebration public, I’m nervous about the response. I’m nervous that people will assume “better” means I’m back to my vodka drinking, burger eating, dancing-til-the-bars-close self (and believe me–– I wish that were the case. That girl was fucking fun.) I’m worried if they get it in their heads that I’m “better,” they’ll assume all the bad days are behind me. They’ll expect too much, and they’ll be disappointed.

So I guess I’m outing my secret right now–– I’m feeling better. My hair stopped falling out. I’ve started to drop some of the weight prednisone packed on me. I’m getting more sleep. I can occasionally eat candy and chips and not worry my intestines are gonna fall out of my butt as a result.

On the flip side, the fatigue still lingers like a bad ex-boyfriend who won’t stop texting me. I still go to bed at around eight most nights. I still take ten pills a day, on average. I still have to stick to a diet of mostly bland foods like fish, bread, and eggs. I’m still dying for a cheeseburger and a big ass sangria.

Feeling good enough to spend the day with my best friends and their moms a few weeks back

So maybe instead of saying I’m better, I’ll just say I’m on an upswing. I can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel that’s been this flare. I know now that an autoimmune disease isn’t something you can just ignore and hope it goes away–– it’s part of my life, and I’ll always be at risk of another life-altering health situation. But I’m choosing to be cautiously optimistic about the parts of me that are feeling better. And I’m choosing, based on writing this, to stop keeping it a secret.

So HEY GUYS, I’M FEELING BETTER. Let’s just celebrate the news at like, 5 PM so I can still be in bed by 8.

The Economics of Illness

Being sick is expensive. Being chronically sick is extra expensive, because it never ends.

Among the many parts of being sick that I often think about when I’m thinking “damn, this is unfair,” that’s honestly what I think about the most. Being sick is exorbitantly, life-ruining-ly expensive.

There’s the typical costs that everyone probably associates with an illness–– hospital visits, fancy new medications, procedures and CT scans. Thanks to insurance (LITERALLY thanks, Obama) these costs are seriously lowered, but “lowered” from their crazy high initial costs still comes out to “too much money for a 24 year old with student loan debt.” I think that’s the technical total on my last hospital bill.

Those are what we call the direct costs. It’s estimated that the average patient with Crohn’s pays about $18,000 per year in direct costs. Basically, if I didn’t have Crohn’s I could take the money I saved and buy a brand new Volkswagon Jetta every year for the rest of my life. I would love a goddamn Jetta.

Hospital visits ain't cheap, but they are incredibly stylish.

But that’s just direct costs–– this doesn’t include the many other things the chronically ill drop cash on. Here’s a quick rundown of (usually expensive) alternative treatments and things that help ease the pain: essential oils, epsom salts, icy hot patches and creams, heating pads, special health foods, supplements, acupuncture treatments, therapy, etc. Every human with an Instagram these days seems to be trying to sell me a protein shake or a cookbook that will cure me. But the thing is, a lot of times when you’re sick, you’ll try anything that just might make you feel better. And that keeps racking up your costs.

At the end of the day, sick people are dropping fatty cash trying to get to the minimum level of functioning at healthy people wake up with every day.

I plan for my future knowing that while my peers will be making car payments and whittling down their student loans, I’ll be doing all of those things plus trying to pay to keep my Crohn’s at bay. Chronic illness is like having a really shitty extra monthly utility bill that you didn’t ask for, but instead of giving you A/C, it keeps you alive. That’s one of the reasons I’m a politically active person–– it’s easy to think that things like health insurance don’t matter all that much until you’re the one who needs help. It’s easy to think your vote doesn’t matter when you’re healthy, but for people like me, laws like those that make it illegal for companies to discriminate against pre-existing conditions are of phenomenal importance.

Without health insurance, the liquid gold they pump into my veins every 8 weeks costs a cool $20k

If I don’t have insurance, I can’t get my medication. If I can’t get my medication, my body stops tolerating food. If I can’t eat, I can’t live and work and be a functioning member of society.

So when it comes down to it, it’s not just impersonal dollars and cents and figures presented in pretty charts on MSNBC. It’s people like me, working and saving and buying kombucha.

Repeat After Me: Being Sick is Not a Point of Failure

There’s no definitive cause to Crohn’s disease. Like a variety of other diseases from Ulcerative Colitis to Lupus to Alopecia, it’s a mysterious variety of factors that may or may not cause illness to develop in a patient. Suffice it to say–– it’s not the patient’s fault that they have these diseases.

I definitely didn’t ask for Crohn’s disease. I was just a high school junior, living my life, studying for the ACT, working at Applebee’s, and watching way too much Buffy The Vampire Slayer. I was just like all my friends, until my body decided that food wasn’t a thing it was going to put up with anymore. And just like that, I went from healthy 17-year-old to chronic illness patient for life. My intestines did not consult me about this.

And here’s the thing–– our society places a really high premium on being healthy. Which is great! It (hopefully) stops people from eating french fries for every meal, because who wouldn’t want to do that if health weren’t a factor? It keeps us exercising, and eating well, and all of those other good, Instagrammable things. We should definitely all be aware of the parts of our health that are within our control, like cholesterol levels and BMI, as much as we can. But what about the parts that are out of our control?

When we talk about health like it’s a personal success, the problem is that we all too often then talk about illness like it’s a personal failure. So many people pride themselves on not having to take pharmaceuticals, or on getting by on yoga and their unrelenting positivity. But that puts those of us who kind of need pills and infusions and fancy CT machines in a shitty spot.

I may not have hiked the Grand Canyon but I looked HELLA athletic sitting on the edge.

So even if you think Big Pharma is evil and ruining America, please try to keep that to yourself when talking to someone with a serious illness. Believe me, we don’t want to be on all these pills. We don’t want to be dependent on so many things to get by. But we are, and it’s not something we’ve chosen. Being sick is not a failing on our part, and doing what we have to do to get through it is also not open to judgement. Believing we as humans don’t “need” pills for health is a viewpoint that all too often comes from a place of privilege. Just because you personally don’t need medication to make it through the day does not mean others don’t.

So I’m not saying we should stop celebrating the healthy–– marathon runners are crazy wonderful mutants and they deserve those medals and the little “26.2” bumper stickers to put on their Jeeps. But just make sure that when you are going after your own health goals, or talking to someone else about theirs, that we aren’t all the same. For a normal person a health goal might be training for a triathlon. For someone with a chronic disease, a health goal might be a walk around the block or, if you’re me, some incredibly low-key yoga. All options are valid and great, and one is not better than the other.

So practice a little empathy next time you’re around the water cooler talking diets or exercise regimens. We can’t all climb Everest, but hopefully we can all make ourselves feel successful in one way or another.

TBH

It is 6:08 PM on a Friday night. In summer. In the third largest city in America.

I am sitting on my couch, listening to a relaxation playlist on Spotify while my cat kneads my stomach fat.

The excitement of my night will likely be what marinade I choose for the fresh salmon I bought on my way home from work, and what movie I choose on Netflix.

Such has been an accurate description of almost every Friday night I’ve had for the last 5 months.

The most exciting thing I did this weekend was read in the park

Sometimes, this is fine. Sometimes I relish in the slow and hazy schedule of not being able to have a real schedule. I tell myself that I am super zen about the whole thing and that I have accepted my current lot in life. That I’m cool with spending age 24, the so-called “prime of my life,” in a health-induced purgatory because “it is what it is.” Sometimes I mean it.

Sometimes, this is really not fine. This week, I had a good day. A day where for most of it, I pretty much forgot I was sick at all. I went grocery shopping, did some cooking, got my nails done, and went to a wonderful dinner with a group of my closest friends. I ate great food on a patio in the warm weather and told stories and laughed and read our horoscopes. I actually found myself thinking, as I walked home, “maybe I’m fine. Maybe this sickness is going away, and I’m being overly-cautious by passing on social plans for fear of making myself worse.”

The next day was one of the worst symptom days I’ve had in a long time. It felt personal–– like a jab from the universe, saying “you think you’re normal? You think you can do all the things a healthy person can do and not pay for it? You can’t. In case you’d forgotten.”

That night, I laid in bed trying and failing at sleep. I was under the assault of a bone-crushing fatigue that made it impossible to do anything but half-way watch Law & Order reruns and stare at my cat until he got unnerved and turned around.

Tuesday night, me being a normal human at dinner with friends

Sometimes, I have a wise thing to say. A piece of advice. Something I’ve learned from my illness. Something being sick has made me more aware of that I’m thankful for.

Other nights, like that one, or tonight, I don’t. I’m just mad, and sad, and sick. Usually I think I’m making my illness more palatable for the universe by adding a happy spin on the end. “My joints hurt so bad I can’t think–– but it’s fine, I’m really getting to catch up on my reading!” I rarely leave it at “Hey–– I feel like a pile of hot garbage today. That is all.” But I figure sometimes, it’s more honest to leave it at that. And if I truly want people to have awareness of what it’s like to live with a chronic illness, I should be honest, right? Sometimes you have a day that doesn’t end with a bright shiny spin of positivity, and that’s okay, too. Your life is not a PR angle, it’s just your life.

So in the spirit of honesty and not sugarcoating: Hey–– I feel like a pile of hot garbage today. That is all.

Love and Light and Purple Tutus

Meet Lizzie, the most fabulous girl at all of Take Steps Chicago

Sometimes the world can seem like an irredeemably sad place. When surrounded by hate and injustice, after I cry and get angry, I like to take a turn to focus on the small pieces of my life that bring love and light to the world.

It’s a concept I learned in therapy to cope with the day-to-day mental struggles of chronic illness–– on any given day, you can list three good things. On some days, they might be huge happies: you got a promotion, you welcomed a new baby into the family, you finally found a new medication that works for you. On other days, it can be much harder to think of three positives. But I find if I dig a little, I can always find something: the bus was there right when I got to the stop. My favorite song came on the radio twice today. I ate a really solid bagel sandwich.

Listing things that are good may sound silly–– believe me, I’ve had many friends and family goodnaturedly roll their eyes at me when I push them to find three things to be happy about when they’re having a bad day. But as it turns out, life is actually made up of these little, seemingly trivial things. Sure, promotions and babies are great–– but if you live your whole life seeking big things to sustain your happiness, it will probably continue to elude you.

So here are my three happies for today:

1. I discovered a really great new dog Instagram account.
2. I got to chat with my sister for a bit.
3. I had a really great burst of creative inspiration.

See? Nothing life altering. I didn’t cure cancer or win a million dollars, but listing out the little things is an immediate mood-booster, and a quick way to find the good in a day that maybe seemed like actual garbage before. And when that doesn’t work, I go back to some old “good days.” This past weekend was the best weekend I’ve had in a long time–– not only did I go buy stacks on stacks on stacks of used books at the Printer’s Row Lit Fest, but Saturday was finally Chicago’s CCFA walk.

I’d been looking forward to the day for months now, as I’m sure anyone who follows me on social media can attest, but it truly exceeded my greatest expectations. Over 20 of my closest friends and family showed up to walk for me, from my parents to my cousins to my co-workers to my childhood best friends and everyone in between. I’ve never felt so much love in one steaming-hot city park.

My cousins even decked out their adorable babies in homemade team shirts, a move that almost brought me to tears I was so excited and heart-warmed. I might be biased, but it probably made my team the winner in the cuteness category.

We raised over $1,700 for CCFA thanks to almost 40 amazing donors who all came together to support a girl with some malfunctioning intestines, and I can’t thank everyone enough. I’ve never been so excited to have so many thank you notes to write. I even got a chance to be interviewed about my experience with Crohn’s in an effort improve life for other patients, so in addition to raising hella cash, we also raised a lot of awareness.

So to the CCFA employees and volunteers who helped out to make the walk happen to the donors who consistently made my day to the friends who basically walked a 5k in 100 degree heat–– THANK YOU. YOU ARE THE LOVE AND LIGHT THIS WORLD NEEDS.

Take a Walk... In Some Chronically Ill Shoes.

I’ve talked about awareness on here before, and why it’s so important. It’s part of the reason I have this blog. It’s why I’m a pretty open book when it comes to talking to people (even strangers) about my illness. Awareness leads to understanding, which leads to empathy, which makes the world go ‘round, basically.

Since I’ve gotten increasingly sicker, I’ve stepped my game up a bit when it comes to my involvement in the IBD community. I’ve volunteered at events, spoken at kickoffs, and actively fundraised for the Crohn’s & Colitis Foundation of America. Some people may wonder why someone would want to spend so much time thinking about, talking about, and living around their illness, so I figured I would take this little soapbox I have here on the interwebs and explain.

Many people with illnesses (especially so-called “invisible” ones) opt to stay quiet about their experiences. This is a choice I understand and respect. For some, they do so out of a natural sense of privacy (which, as a social-media-obsessed millennial, I simply do not have). For others, they do so because they may be embarrassed about symptoms (anxiety, fistulas, and rectal bleeding, anyone?) or simply because they can’t find the words to express their day-to-day experiences with illness. And many more choose to stay silent for fear of discrimination–– publicly outing yourself as a sick patient can mean less access to jobs or even losing your current one because sometimes companies can be real dicks about disabilities.

I fall on the other end of the spectrum. I am an over-sharer by trade–– hi, writer–– and somehow lack the requisite embarrassment to stop said over-shares. I’m also incredibly lucky to work for a company that not only tolerates my illness but is actually wildly supportive. This puts me in a unique position where I’m really able to talk about the full experience of being sick.

In 2013, my walk team consisted of 6 very kind souls. This year we're rolling in over 20 deep! 

But why would I want to spend my free time writing about being sick? Thinking about being sick? Raising money and reading up and partaking in online communities, all focused on being sick? Well, it’s a fair question. It might be easier to ignore it and hope it goes away–– that was my strategy for about 5 years after my diagnosis, anyway! But here’s the thing: when your disease gets so bad that you’re in daily pain or discomfort, you can’t not think about it. It’s not a choice anymore. So if Crohn’s is going to take up so much real estate in my brain as it is, I figure I may as well try to make something good out of it.

That’s where involvement comes in. That’s why I’m volunteering for the CCFA’s annual events like their gala and Spin4 Cures. That’s why I’m active in the online chronic illness community, offering and receiving advice and encouragement. That’s why I’m so excited to walk in the Take Steps walk this weekend with all of my family and friends. If I have to be sick, the least I can do is take as many positives from that as possible, and provide as much support to others as I can.

It’s also about control (there’s that word again). I can’t control my illness. I can’t control when I have bad days, or when my body decides the meds I’m on are no longer sufficient. So things like doing a walk to raise money for research gives me something I can control–– I know I’m doing what I can, in a small way, to help myself. A cure might be a million years away, but at least in the meantime, I’m not sitting around doing nothing. I am the master of my own fate. Or my colon’s fate. Or something like that.

And the walks provide something else, too–– a place for patients to feel normal. A place to meet other patients who get it, who have been on the meds you're on, who also desperately miss eating McDonald's sometimes. A place for my parents to meet other parents of patients and commiserate about how garbage this disease is. A place for friends and family to feel less helpless about the whole situation. A place where people know the words "remicade" and "abcess" and throw them around with the normalcy in which you might say "telephone." A place to see little 6 year olds with ostomies rocking it out and smiling and laughing and think to yourself "hey, if they can be that positive and cool about all this, I probably can be, too."

AND we got shirts, because I am nothing if not a woman who loves a matching shirt.

So if you know someone with an illness, and they ask you to support them in their charitable, cure-seeking endeavors, give them your Dunkin Donuts money for the week. Head out and walk with them. It’s the little things that mean the world when you’re fighting off your own body, and every little reminder that our attempts at raising awareness and support are working does wonders for our mental health.

And to everyone supporting my walk this weekend–– my heart is full and my busted intestines are eternally grateful for your help. Thank you for helping me find my silver linings.

I'm The Sick Girl, But I'm Everything Else, Too.

“You are not your disease.”

That’s something people like to say when you’re sick. And it’s true! It’s so true. You are not your disease. A diagnosis does not define your character. But sometimes when people say “you are not your disease,” what they really mean is “please stop talking about your disease as it is making me uncomfortable and I would like to talk about more pleasant matters, like what happened last night on The Bachelorette.”

I am not my disease. I know this. But my disease does inform a lot of the things I do and feel, because duh. When you’re in pain or discomfort on a daily basis, it’s going to inform parts of you. When you can’t socialize with your friends because you’re having a terrible fatigue day, it’s going to affect you. Accepting that goes a long way toward stabilizing your mental health. But that’s all the disease is–– a part of me. It defines me in the way that all of the other parts define me, both good and bad.

And in a flare like the present one, I do sometimes worry that my life revolves around my illness. My planner is full of doctor’s appointments, infusions, and support groups. My social media posts look like the diary of a grandma who really likes to Instagram. I don’t have exciting weekend plans to contribute at the water cooler–– just maybe a story about the movie I watched this weekend (which was Beauty & The Beast, if you were wondering. It really holds up).

I am a girl who makes my friends dress up like Taylor Swift

So today I got to thinking–– does your life center too much around your illness? What’s your identity these days aside from sick girl? And here’s what I came up with. These are all (or some) of the things, aside from a Crohn’s Disease diagnosis, that make me “me.”

I am a writer. This is central to my character and humanity. Even when I can’t get my shit together long enough to be working on a legitimate project with any sort of discipline, I am always writing bits and pieces and notes and letters and blogs and first acts of plays I will never finish.

I am a cat mom. I have embraced cat-lady-dom in full force with my little Russian Blue Alfie and my roommate’s cat, Tiny. They make my days so much more adorable and sunshiney and even writing this makes me want to devolve into a pile of baby-talking, cat-toy-buying mush.

I am a compulsive reader. More detrimentally to my paycheck, I am a compulsive book-buyer. Everything from classics to modern lit to young adult fiction to beach reads to memoirs–– I will read it. Book stores and libraries house some of my favorite memories and generally make me feel safe.

I am a Taylor Swift super fan. I know every word of every song by heart. Last summer I spent way too much of my disposable income to see her two nights in a row in Chicago. I grew up with her songs, and they will always hold a special place in my heart. I once had a Taylor Swift themed birthday party in which everyone was forcefully encouraged to dress up like her. She liked a picture of my birthday cake on Tumblr and I cried.

I am a girl who drives to Iowa on a cold Saturday to canvass for the caucus

I am a political junkie. I am a lifelong democrat who watches CNN for fun. I have a favorite political analyst (her name is Donna and she loves a sassy jacket.) #ImWithHer, and I’ve got the t-shirt and the button to prove it.

I’m a comedian, in whatever way you would like to take that. I have dabbled in every form of making people laugh from stand up to web series to sketch writing and beyond. Making other people happy makes me happy, and making them laugh is the best way I know how to do that. (There is also, undeniably, a power aspect, as I am probably a tiny dictator of fun.)

I am a volunteer. I like to give time and effort to a cause. As a kid, this took the form of community service clubs and volunteer hours and the like. Now I like to support the causes of others, speak up about issues that mean something to me, and raise money for cool organizations I feel strongly about (like CCFA.)

I am a friend. I will give you advice when you think you want to dump your boyfriend. I will make you a sad songs mixtape when you do. I will mail you a happy gift when you’re stressed, or when you’ve accomplished something awesome. I will support your startups, your side hustles, your stories and your art. I will cheer you on forever. And even when I’m too sick to make it to your party, I will send you unending snapchats of the aforementioned cat children (jury is still out on if this makes me a good friend or an annoying one, but hey.)

So that’s me. Sick girl, funny girl, obsessed-with-pop music and shirts with cats on them girl. If you’re chronically ill, I highly recommend this little activity of writing down who you are outside of your illness. Sometimes we all need a reminder that we don’t have to be just one thing, and we don’t have to fit into neat little boxes. I have a lot of messy, disorganized boxes, and those are pretty great as well.

How I Learned To Embrace My Inner Introvert

I always thought I was an extrovert.

In retrospect, I always tried to be an extrovert, because I thought that was the correct way to be. Who doesn’t want to be the life of the party? Introvert, for some reason, had negative connotations to me. Shy. Unapproachable. Anti-social. All things that I was taught from an early age were disadvantageous to be. So I made myself loud and boisterous–– the center of attention. It took me way, way too long to realize that in almost every situation where I was forcing myself into that role, I was wildly uncomfortable.

As I’ve gotten older, I developed pretty bad anxiety. It had to do with a lot of things–– my brain chemistry, some pretty long-ingrained perfectionism, and my Crohn’s diagnosis, to name a few. But it was far too hard with my rising anxiety to pretend to be the most outgoing one in the room all the time. This was both a blessing and a curse: I was self-conscious that others would view my new “personality shift” as weird, but I also felt so much more comfortable in a middle ground.

Me in my natural habitat: at home with blankets.

Don’t get me wrong, I still enjoy attention as much as your next narcissistic writer. But as I’ve grown into myself as an adult (especially an adult with a chronic illness), I’ve enjoyed shifting that attention to a more behind-the-scenes approach. Rather than needing to be the one yelling out a funny story at a party, I’m content to express myself through writing. Instead of forcing myself on stage, I wrote a web series and cast some friends as the leads. It’s been all about finding a happy medium. I still love to talk and meet new people, but I’ve realized I don’t need to force myself to command a room.

But then my illness got worse, and things got a bit more extreme.

For someone like myself who’s often been self-conscious about my introvertedness, being forced to stay in due to illness can really get my anxiety going. My thoughts can go from zero to doom-spiral in 60 seconds flat: do people think I’m just rude? Anti-social? God forbid, boring? And when people say things like “I’m so jealous, I would love to lay in bed all day!” Or, “You went to bed how early? That sounds great!” It can make those anxious thoughts even worse. Even though, as an introvert, I love staying in every once in awhile, staying in because of my illness isn’t a choice I’m making–– and believe me, most Friday nights, I’d way rather be doing anything but going to bed at 8.

But thanks to some nice friends and paid professionals, when that doom-spiral comes a-knocking, I remind myself of one simple fact: people don’t think about you nearly as much as you think they do.

One of the best people to stay in and build a gingerbread house in matching onesies with.

The attention-loving part of me has a pretty intense imaginary audience complex, as we all do to an extent, that believes that when I miss a party or a night out at the bar, everyone is sitting around wondering (and discussing) why. In reality, when I miss a night out at the bar, most of my friends wish me well thoughts and then go down a few tequila shots and make some bad decisions. For good or bad, I am not the crux of their thoughts for the evening.

The shitty thing about anxiety is that it’s not also simple enough as remembering logical thoughts like that, because anxiety is, by nature, illogical. But it has helped to remember that the real friends I have are never going to bail because I stay in on a Friday night. In fact, some of them might join me. With puzzles. And ginger ale. And season five of “Scandal.”