Imagine this:

A perfectly healthy, happy 17 year old girl. Imagine that girl losing about 50 pounds in 2-3 months, not being able to keep any food down, not wanting to eat anything, and thinking she's going crazy because now all the time she just feels sick. “Are you supposed to feel like this every day?" “Is it healthy to lose this much weight this fast?" “What's wrong with me?" Now imagine that girl being taken to the hospital one night because she can't stop throwing up, and then imagine that girl months later being told she has an incurable, lifelong disease she didn't even know existed up until that point. “It's one of the worst cases of Crohn's disease we've ever seen," the doctors at Johns Hopkins hospital in Baltimore, Maryland told her.

When I was 17 years old, I was diagnosed with Crohn's disease, which is a chronic inflammatory bowel disease that affects the lining of the digestive tract. I'm 18 now, a senior in high school, and have had Crohn's for a little over a year.

Symptoms include: abdominal pain, joint pain, bloating, bowel obstruction, nausea, fatigue, frequent diarrhea, loss of appetite, cramping or tenderness, unexplained weight loss, etc.

Complications of Crohn's disease include: Obstruction (blockage) of the intestines, fissures (small cuts or tears in the anal canal, which may bleed), fistulas (abnormal tunnels that form between two structures of the body), increased risk of colon cancer, due to chronic inflammation of the colon, vitamin and mineral deficiencies, and anemia. I'm not going to lie, this is a disgusting disease and if I'm being completely honest, I'm afraid to tell people that I have it because of what it entails.

It took countless months to figure out what was wrong, with one medical test after another. Finally, the doctors declared me chronically sick for the rest of my life, put me on some pills to maintain the disease, and that was that. My life consists of 12-14 pills a day, every 6 month doctors visits, getting IV infusions of a drug/medicine called Remicade every 4 weeks, and having to rest every single day for hours just to try to feel at least a little bit better.

Don't get me wrong, I love my life and I have a great stable family who really helps and supports me through this. It's just very hard at times. When you feel as if you can't concentrate on anything in school because all you can think about is the pain you're feeling. When your body aches all over and it hurts to move a single finger. When you wake up every morning and you're still tired even after sleeping all night. At those times, it just is hard to put into perspective that this is your life for the rest of your life.

The day I was diagnosed I was asked to rate my pain level on a scale from 1-10, with 10 being the worst pain I've ever felt. I rated my pain as a three, because I was doing fine that day. The doctor later told me, after telling me what was wrong with me, that my pain level should have been way above a ten. I had gotten so used to living with pain, that I didn't realize that's not how normal, healthy people weren't supposed to be feeling.

Chronic: (of a problem) long-lasting and difficult to eradicate.

Basically, chronic means forever with no hope of ever escaping daily pain and sickness. Crohn's disease has no cure. I guess you could call it “rare" in America, because there are fewer than 200,000 US cases per year.

Simply just being there for the person can make huge difference. With having a chronic illness, I feel as if it is important to have friends that will support you. I think that it scares a lot of my friends that I have this chronic illness. I remember when I was diagnosed my one friend would always say "I want the old Emily back." She meant the Emily that wasn't sick all of the time. Often times when I message my friends telling them saying I'm feeling poorly, they respond with “me too," change the subject, or just ignore my message. I feel like a lot of my friends forget that I'm sick because on the outside, I look fine. You wouldn't be able to tell that I'm chronically sick because you can't see Crohn's disease. Not all of my friends are like that. I have some that are very helpful. I have this one reallygreat person who helps me through everything, and I'm very grateful to have him in my life. He also suffers from chronic illness, only we have different diseases. It really helps to talk to him about all of this since he understands, which mostly everyone in my life cannot do, since they themselves do not have Crohn's or some chronic illness.

The tolls being chronically ill takes on your brain to know that you'll never get better is hard. It's like a constant battle. You try to get better, but you literally can't. That definitely messes with your emotional well-being. You see, most people think that chronic illnesses are only physically painful. That's not the case.

It would be impossible for me to imagine what it's like to constantly feel/be healthy, so I get why you can't imagine what it's like to constantly feel/be unhealthy.

As I was saying, emotional pain with chronic illness is real, and it's there. Knowing you'll never be “normal" again. Knowing you'll always have to maintain and change your lifestyle to help manage your disease. I read this great article once called “What It's Really Like To Be Chronically Ill," and it said “How are you supposed to get rid of an emotional suffocation when the source of it is never going to go away?"

You know, the internet makes things seem a lot less worse than they actually are. I've read hundreds of articles about Crohn's, how to manage symptoms, how to relieve the stress of it, and how to cope with being ill forever. These articles mainly talk about the medical perspective of chronic illness. No one ever goes into emotional detail, and that's why I wrote this article.

The internet does not cover how much you miss things. I was not able to march in marching band, or be in the school musical my junior year of high school. I'll never get those opportunities back. Sure, there were other things I missed in school that year, but I decided not to keep track of all of that because I figured that would be unhealthy. The thing is, I'm not just talking about missing school. I miss waking up and not feeling tired. I miss not having bruises on my arms from where I had to get stuck with needles. I miss not having to worry if a bathroom is nearby me at all times. I miss being able to eat whatever I want without having to worry about how it will affect my disease. I miss going out places without having to take breaks and sit down for long periods of time. I miss not feeling embarrassed. I feel embarrassed taking pills in the middle of a food court at the mall with people all around me. I feel embarrassed when I take too long in the bathroom at school and wonder who noticed. Most importantly, I miss feeling healthy. At this point, I have forgotten what that feels like, and maybe that's for the better so I don't miss it as much.

People with chronic illnesses have to endure so much. Not only do we endure the endless doctor visits and medical tests, but we endure feeling like crap 24/7. As time passes, we only get stronger, wiser, and we develop a better understanding for our disease. We learn how to appreciate life, and appreciate the days we feel well. We are more sympathetic towards others with chronic illnesses, and more sympathetic in general. We don't take life for granted. My point is, people with chronic illnesses are strong as hell.