3 year suffer wanting to talk

Hi guys :), I'm new to this so bare with me.

At the age of 17 while in my first year of 6th form college I was diagnosed with UC. It hit me hard and I was 24 hours away from hospital admittance but thankfully the steroids kicked in and I avoided it. Phew!

I'm now 20 coming up to 21 in September. When I first diagnosed it hit me hard. I was over come with this feeling of being abnormal. I was 17 a regular sports player and felt physically fit. Next thing you know I'm passing blood, weighing close to 10 stone wen I was 13 stone and taking 22 tablets aday! At 17 22 tablets aday! How many other 17 years old take 22 tablets a day!!!

The illness forces me to drop out of school, I lost contact with my mates for 6 months while I recovers and as a result of being house bound became depressed. Although I took no medication or coins culling I managed to turn my mindset around. Through the support of my father, a fellow sufferer, and fulltime employment being
Found.

Life picked up a bit I found myself a girl friend and my medication decreased to 3 tablets a day, but I still found myself feeling abnormal. I can't eat what I want I can't drink what I want. I can't even play sport like I used to for the impact it has on my body physically. I'm 20 and this massive change in my life makes me feel odd. I mean all my decisions are based on how my UC will react.

So recently I found my self unemployed. This leads to 3 months out of work, my UC fairs up, my depression takes hold and my girl friend leaves me because of it all basically. What makes me feel even more abnormal cause now I feel not only has this UC affected my social life, sporting hobbies, diet and my mental health but it's also stopping me having relationships!!!

I feel odd and frustrated at the world. I've been dealt a bad hand and I am working my ass of to get what I want out of life but it just feels like I'm always against it!! I don't feel normal and I compare myself to a others as a result and I just wonder does anyone else feel the same?

Thanks for any replies if you've bothered to read it all :)

Captiano,
Sorry to see you here but glad that you are reaching out.
This is an awesome forum with lots of information. Make use of it.

Please don't get depressed about your current state. It will pass....
Keep in mind-for some people, it is hard to attain remission with meds alone. So they have to incorporate supplements, diet changes and other life style modifications to get close to normal.

Rectal meds( Suppositories and enemas) along with oral meds is the easiest and quicker way attain remission for majority.

Some achieved remission simply by going gluten free- for some others it is by avoiding sugars, processed foods and milk.
If you haven't yet- Please keep a food journal and track your symptoms. That way you can eliminate your triggers.
There are so many anti-inflammatory diets that helps UC. You yourself have to try and figure out which diet is best for you because the results varies with people.

If you are interested , do some research on Fecal transplant- Few attained remission by this alternative treatment.

Best wishes...

Dear Captiano,

Through our lives many things change, friends and even some families members fall in and out of your life no longer being predominant figures and there are times where you feel like everyone has left you and you are alone sitting there wondering what to do. This feeling is normal as well but we associate it with abnormality because when we go outside we see people together or on the television media represents that normalcy is two people together with a dog/cat and a car and house debt that would make any consumer proud. You must realize that all these things that you are defining as abnormality are completely normal we all go through them at one stage or another and because of that fact you are and will never be alone. There is always someone there that has had a similar situation or will be able to understand where you are coming from because they to have experienced what you are going through in some way.

I have heard it said that our tastebuds change every seven years so even things like our taste we cannot control, I personally have become fond of fried okra where at one time I thought that the only thing to do to ones enemies is feed them the same fried okra I now lovingly consume. Nothing in life is static we are dynamic creatures by nature. When born we learn and learn and learn and learn and all these things are dynamic changes leaving one salient identity behind from where you once were known as someone who ate baby food all day and slept to being that person who exercised and did sports I am currently mentally struggling through the inability to exercise at the pace I once did, it sucks I hate it but I know that that person is no longer who I am now. While I am labeled with UC or to someone I am explaining it to I am a mere summation of the complications to their day by having a schedule that does not fit their idea of what is normal but again, I repeat, that is their normal not your normal and neither one is better or worse than the other they are just different and life in its glory is different.

So while you may be upset and hurt that you are in a different part of your life please understand that with every new day you are in a new part of your life and if people decide to step out of your beautiful path then they can either join back with you or they may not be meant for the same journey that you are in life, and that is ok, because difference is ok. Everything will be fine. I promise.

Captiano,

Struggling with criticisms about ourself and self perceived faults it is easy to become bogged down and frustrated but that is only a part of your summation and you are infinitely more than just that one criticism or flaw. Life will always be a frustrating conundrum of who, what, when, where, and why but the question of "how" do we deal with these is what changes our perception of all these. Life will forever be unequal if for nothing else than biological reasons much less the other demographic and socioeconomic variables that exist in our world and while we can look at the world and see how dark and jaded it has possibly become we can also recognize that beside that shadow is a light shining on the beauty and wonder that is everything positive about you. Life is about constantly being challenged and swimming against the tide at time there are pauses and breaks in the river where we can rest relax and at times the current even pushes us along but no swim is without its rough waters my friend we must just keep looking into the horizon of what is to come not what is in the now at those moments.

I am going to link you to a video I found the other day and I hope his thoughts fill in the voids I may have left in my conversation to you and he can be of some assistance if from nothing more than a fresh perspective.

youtu.be/tkKOijiatLo

Captiano,

I am 28.

I have to go for the night but I leave you with this quote from Ann Hendershott "When a society's moral boundaries are sharp, clear, and secure, and the central norms and values are strongly held, moral panics rarely take hold. When the moral boundaries are fuzzy and shifting, poorly defined by ineffective authority and constant testing, as we see so often now on college campuses, moral panics are far more likely to grow-in an attempt to clarify the moral boundaries" While this speaks directly about moral boundaries from an absolutist perspective in sociology about deviance it can easily be turned from a macro perspective to that of an individualist perspective.

"When ones boundares are sharp, clear, and secure, and the central norms and values are strongly held, panics rarely take hold. When the boundaries are fuzzy and shifting, poorly defined by inconsistencies and being constantly tested, . . ., panics are far more likely to grow-in an attempt to clarify the new idea of normalcy" May her revised words help you in your journey my friend.

Remember that you yourself defined it as a battle which by definition is a small struggle to a greater outcome, therefore its finitely temporal. Hole too me seems almost encapsulating and constricting which is what it may feel like but so can tight jeans be encapsulating and constricting but infinitely easier to get out of ;P (with scissors at worst)

There is no need to thank me I am just glad I could be of assistance as so many before me have been to others here on this board.