Advice that stayed with me.

What is the best piece of advice you have ever been given? 

This isn’t something I was told personally but it was something I read on a blog during the early years of my diagnosis. Another chronic illness blogger wrote it (sadly I don’t remember which one). However this piece of advice I believe I’ve referenced before – it’s one of my favorites and it had a very big impact on how I view my illness. 

“Your body doesn’t hate you, it’s doing the best it can to protect you.” 

This changed everything for me. I spent so long always saying “my body hates me!” And things of the like. Don’t get me wrong I still have anger and sadness and grief. But I view it differently. Rather than seeing my body as the enemy I see it as itself doing everything it knows how to do. It’s trying so hard to protect me, it loves me so much that it’s angry at the wrong things? It sees threats that aren’t there but the reactions that it has are because it’s trying to protect me. Not because it’s mad. So I guess that’s the long way of saying… That advice that another chronically ill person wrote it, helped teenage me reframe how I work with my body. With my illnesses.

It’s still difficult but it’s better than it was.