When I was first diagnosed with Crohn's disease, I was put on a heavy dose of IV steroids and then a drug that can cause some horrendous side effects (yet which is regularly used for Crohn's) called Azathioprine. Whilst the former made my face swell to an unsightly size — known as the effects of "moon face" — the latter gave me some super weird psychological effects.

I spent a good year living in a haze, stepping out in front of cars because I felt like I was already dead and harming my skin in order to cause some sensation of feeling. During periods where I actually felt alive, I found myself swathed in depression at the fact that I couldn't do anything to make myself feel better.

When I found myself in a healthy state, I was eventually brought down to weaker doses of different drugs. I balanced it out at around 16 tablets a day and gradually leveled them down until I found myself keeping my disease under control merely by living on a severely restricted diet.

When I started at my university, I was completely medication-free. I was able to live (almost) like a normal, healthy person and was quite content in my bubble of complete ignorance towards my disease. I balanced a good diet with a good exercise regime and kept my stress and anxiety levels low by learning how to keep on top of my mental health.

Everything was good...until it wasn't. When you have a disease like Crohn's, you tend to go through flare-ups (periods of being really unwell), where you can use medication some of the time to bring down your inflammation markers to an almost stable level.

We all have different triggers, and whilst some sufferers may only have a few symptoms, others will spend their lives completely sedentary due to the pain. It's a tricky thing to talk about because not one person has the same experience as another.

At my university, I began to lose sight of my illness. I labeled myself as able-bodied and did things I shouldn't. I drank alcohol and tried out different forms of recreation, ate food I knew were Crohn's triggers, and got exceedingly stressed out over deadlines.

I spent a lot of my nights out and signed up to things that pushed the limits of even able-bodied people, such as a society where I spent weekends living in old barracks with little sleep, little food (other than frozen chocolate bars) and an unreasonable amount of exercise, where the majority of us would end each day vomiting.

I did not take care of myself the way a person with my diagnosis should.

I made myself believe that I was healthy, because goddamn it, why should I be cursed with an incurable disease?

So I ignored it.

That was until I couldn't sleep due to the pain and had trouble keeping anything down other than blood. I could sleep for 17 plus hours a day due to the fact that my body was craving a chance to heal, and my hair started coming out in clumps as my skin scarred itself with psoriasis and my eyes swelled with blepharitis.

I didn't want to admit that I was in a flare again, and yet here it was, staring me right in the face.

Coming to the conclusion that I should go back to the hospital took longer than it should have.

When family members asked me how I was, I retorted that I was fine. The symptoms had re-appeared so slowly and gradually over time that I had somehow begun to normalize them. I dreaded being medicated and hated myself for not being able to keep up with any of my peers.

Eventually, I was re-medicated. I was put back on steroids because my inflammation was so bad that my whole digestive system was in collapse and was given a new collection of maintenance drugs. I suddenly found myself back up to those 16 tablets a day again.

My anxiety returned because I hated how my disease made me feel. I hated the pain, and I hated the way I saw myself in the mirror. The swelling of limbs, the fact that I couldn't leave the bed for days and the pressing lethargy made me feel horrendous.

I found myself consumed by so much self-hate that when I started to get better I couldn't even tell.

Gingerly, my energy came back. I felt myself get excited for life again as I could move around and not cry out in agony. I despised the fact that I was back to relying on medication that came with so many side effects, but when my flatmates all gasped at how healthy I looked when I walked back into the university, I knew I had made the right decision.

I had tried to ignore the fact that I am unwell for so long, I could almost fool myself that I wasn't diseased. I had tried to compete for the fun pastimes that my peers had and ignored my own well-being. Despite the fact that I couldn't stand the idea of medication, I learned that it had pretty much saved me from my own self-destruction.

I felt both ashamed and weak for having to be hospitalized and medicated again, but now, I am so incredibly thankful that the option was there.

While I still struggle from the symptoms that Crohn's so kindly grants me, they are nowhere near as bad as they could be if I had carried on the way I was.

With Crohn's, you lose control over a lot of aspects of your life. Now, I tell people my limits. I steer clear of my triggers and my main focus is keeping my illness under control. Being medicated doesn't have to mean defeat, and I am grateful to have some power over my own health and well-being once again.