One Thing I Haven't Seen Talked About Much When It Comes To Chronic Illnesses Is How It Ages You. By

One thing I haven't seen talked about much when it comes to chronic illnesses is how it ages you. By that, I mean making you feel older than you really are, as if you jumped decades all at once. I'm only in my twenties, and yet I often feel like I'm more than double my age, especially when I'm around others my age.

They all seem so, idk, full of life? I've gotten so used to being tired constantly, to getting sick at the smallest change of plans, and avoiding traveling and I guess sometimes I forget that other people just..... don't have to do those things. I wish I could be as adventurous as my friends. It hurts knowing that in some ways, I can never experience life as everyone around me does. It's like I skipped straight over my twenties and went right into my fifties. Some days I think maybe that isn't true, and that I might actually be able to keep up with healthy people my age. But then I try to go out with people, or plan going to an event, or even just hang out at someone else's place, and I'm reminded of how I'll never quite have the freedom of being young and healthy. The "prime of my life" is being living in the shoes of someone far older than what my birth year would imply.

There's just so much about my life that feels......out of place for someone my age. The random pain, the unexpected nausea, the piles of pill bottles, supplements, and injections. Going to the clinic so often that my mom and I are on a first-name basis with the nurses and the doctors. Remembering how to pronounce and spell the names of like 6 different prescriptions. Knowing what a colonoscopy is like, and having had three of them before even being old enough to drink. Having my first priority when job searching be for something with great health insurance. Worrying not about if I will get cancer, but when. Knowing that someday, any day really, I may not respond to medication anymore. That at some point, major surgery may be my only option. Spending several months thinking that I was dying at only 14. Needing to cancel or postpone plans often because I can't leave the bathroom. So, so much that just isn't that common for people my own age. I know that there are lots of others out there with experiences like mine, but I've rarely if ever come across them.

It's hard trying to spend time with anyone. I feel like I'm only going to drag people's mood down and ruin our plans, even if I'm the one that made them. I guess maybe I should try to acknowledge my limits more and accept that I might need to take it easy. But deep down, I want to live like a healthy twenty-something-year-old. I want to make those spontaneous plans, to go out and do something exhausting, to go somewhere in the middle of nowhere with no bathroom to be found and feel confident about it. To party, and fall in love, and take that internship opportunity, and do all the exciting stuff that college has to offer. But I know that I can't in the way that I want to, and that maybe I never will.

It hurts that I will likely never experience the so-called "best years of my life" in the way that I had hoped for before I was diagnosed.