As we all know, living with IBD is incredibly unpredictable. While many of us develop strategies to cope with flares, there’s a layer of stress and fatigue that often goes unspoken and sometimes unmanaged. The mental load of living with a chronic illness is one of the hardest parts to navigate. This mental load is the ongoing, day-to-day strain of managing IBD. It’s always there in the background. Sometimes subtle, sometimes overwhelming and over time, it can shift from gener

When a flare begins to settle, people often assume the hard part is over. Your symptoms improve, your energy slowly returns, and life starts to feel a little more normal. But emotionally, recovery isn't always that simple. Many people tell me that even after they're physically feeling better, they still feel anxious. They find themselves paying close attention to every symptom, wondering if another flare is around the corner. They hesitate to make plans because they're afraid

If you live with a chronic illness, you've probably had to cancel plans because you weren't feeling well. Maybe you woke up exhausted. Maybe your symptoms flared unexpectedly. Maybe you wanted to go, but your body had other plans. For many people, the hardest part isn't missing the event—it's the guilt that comes afterward. You may worry that you've let someone down. You wonder if they'll stop inviting you or think you're unreliable. You replay the text you sent to cancel and

Living with a chronic illness changes more than your physical health. It can also change the relationship you have with your body. Many people tell me they no longer trust their body the way they used to. Instead of feeling confident in it, they feel like they're constantly questioning it. "Is this just a normal stomach ache, or is a flare starting?" "Am I tired because I didn't sleep well, or is something wrong?" "Can I make plans this weekend, or will my symptoms get in the

One of the hardest parts of living with a chronic illness isn't always the illness itself. Sometimes, it's feeling misunderstood. When your symptoms aren't visible, people often assume you're doing fine. They see you smiling, going to work, or showing up for family events, and they naturally believe you're feeling okay. But what they don't see is everything happening behind the scenes. They don't see the fatigue you're pushing through. The anxiety about whether symptoms might

Living with Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD) often means grappling with uncertainty. Even when symptoms are manageable, an underlying fear about health, the body, or what might happen next can linger. Doctor appointments, medications, procedures, flare-ups, hospital visits, and waiting for test results create emotional stress that can be hard for others to understand. Over time, many individuals with IBD find themselves constantly on alert, anticipating something might go wro

Talking about a chronic illness can feel complicated. You might want people to understand what you’re going through, but at the same time feel unsure how much to share — or who to trust with that information. You may worry about being seen differently, being misunderstood, or feeling like a burden. So instead, you keep parts of your experience to yourself. If this feels familiar, you’re not alone. Opening up about a chronic illness is deeply personal, and it makes sense that

Asthma, Diabetes, Arthritis…these are chronic illnesses with which we’re all familiar. We probably know someone living with one of these and may have even talked with friends or loved ones about how their illness affects them. Another chronic illness is Inflammatory Bowel Disease, also known as Crohn’s Disease or Ulcerative Colitis. What makes this illness different from others, though, is that it can feel embarrassing to discuss since it affects a part of our body we don’t o

I don’t know about you, but for me and many others I’ve spoken with, having a chronic illness evokes a lot of feelings. You worry that the plans you had for your life aren’t realistic anymore. You miss the life you had before your diagnosis, when you felt healthy and whole. Now you just feel tired, frustrated, angry, and worried. Over the years, some of the things I've heard from people are: “People don’t understand what I’m going through because I often look healthy on the o

I was diagnosed with Ulcerative Colitis when I was 28 years old. It took about 2 years to get into remission but once I did, I was fairly stable. Unfortunately, stable meant constant weight fluctuations, severe abdominal cramps, crippling fatigue, and lots of other unpleasant symptoms that I’ll refrain from sharing, but since I had heard such terrible stories of other people living with this illness, I came to realize that I was one of the lucky ones. During a routine colon