I want to preface this article by saying that my experience with chronic illness is built on a specific set of chronic illnesses and I’m not an authority by any means. I am merely giving an anecdotal account.

Having chronic illnesses is hard.

I’m not here to complain or gripe, but it’s difficult. Anyone with chronic illnesses will tell you that.

It’s difficult for a lot of reasons, but I find it hardest for myself because it’s so difficult to cope with.

No one tells you how to handle being in pain the majority of the time. No one tells you how to live a life that’s structured around when you won’t and will be in intense pain. And, from my experience, it takes a long time to learn how to.

You learn how to tell your friends that you can’t hang out because you need an hour or two for medication to work. You learn to tote your medication as though it were a lifeline. You learn to put your head down in class nonchalantly, the fluorescent lights a bit too much some days. You learn to tell your professors that you have a ‘condition’ that makes certain things harder. You learn to rest when you need to.

For me, the hardest thing to learn was living with it.

Coming to terms with the strange permeance of being chronically ill. You’re taught when you’re young that a sore throat and headache are temporary things, cured by kisses and warm soup. You eventually figure out that it’s not that easy. You come to find that there’s no real ‘cure’, but pills, herbs, and injections that should help you feel better for a while. You come to terms with the toll these things have on the parts of your body that aren’t ill.

The thing about being chronically ill is that you never really feel well.

You have good days, but there’s still an inkling of pain in the back of your skull. You still have to carry around your meds in your back pocket, aware that you could become ill at any moment.

And you come to terms with it.

You come to terms that, right now, and probably for a long time, this is how things will be.

And you just have to learn and cope in whatever way you can.