When people look at me, they see what they think is a normal 21 year old. However, what they don't see is that I live with a illness one that is not seen unless you look at me internally.

I live with something called Irritable Bowel Syndrome (or IBS). Like Crohn's disease, IBS is a chronic inflammatory bowel disease that affects the lining of the digestive tract. Although IBS is not a severe as Crohn's, it is just as hard to live with.

My IBS diagnosis came after I had a colonoscopy when I was a freshman in college. It was a relief to me because I had checked the mayo clinic and many of my symptoms related to colon cancer. I guess that is why you don't check anything medical online because it is almost always wrong.

When I got diagnosed with IBS my life changed forever. I had to alter my lifestyle completely to fit my new life with IBS.

Not only could I no longer eat what I wanted, I could no longer do anything I wanted in fear of having IBS flare-ups when I would be in the bathroom for hours at a time. I had to live with something that was life altering and I did not know how to cope and it did not help that some people were not supporting me.

For a long time after that I had to give up one of my favorite things, running. I could no longer do something that had been a constant thing in my chaining life for the past five years.

I became lactose intolerant which affected me greatly as i could no longer eat my favorite foods. Even if something had a touch of milk in it I could not eat it. I had become one of those people with severe allergies that had to ask even in restaurants if I could get it without diary. They would look at it funny because I guess being lactose intolerant was weird.

I wish people at that time understood what I was going through. When I tried to explain to people what was going on, anything involving the talk of bowels was immediately shut down because many found it gross. I was also constantly judged because I went to the bathroom much more than the average person.

During freshman year after I had come back to people questioning things about my new lifestyle and not wanting to hear why I had I altered it so much because it dealt with bowels and the gross topic of pooping. The only people who wanted anything to with my new found lifestyle was the nursing majors who thought it was very interesting.

As the years went on I learned how to manage my new lifestyle, I went on medication to fix my issues with running and being lactose intolerant. However, I still have to live with the issue of people not understanding me because they do not want to hear anything about poop. I think that because people do not want to hear anything about poop is why there is so much not known about bowel and gut diseases. If people took these diseases more seriously than they did, we would most likely find a actual cure instead of preventative measures.