Your Unique Journey

Dear ones,⁣ ⁣

You who have felt the devastation of betrayal. Betrayed by the vessel that houses you, your body, your supposed home. ⁣ ⁣

You who have felt invisible, as invisible as your disease is to other beings. ⁣ ⁣

You who have felt misunderstood, misjudged, mistreated by a world that does not understand, that does not even know these forms of illnesses exist. ⁣ ⁣

You who have felt insurmountable pain and suffering, leaving you withered, depleted, and broken. ⁣ ⁣

You who have felt as if you were drowning in the blackest sea of grief. Grief for the life you lost. Grief for the person you once were. Grief for the ambitions, goals, and dreams that were snatched from your fingertips. ⁣

⁣ I know. ⁣

⁣ I have been there. ⁣

⁣ Perhaps, to some extent, I will always be there because how can I forget? ⁣ ⁣

How can I forget the despair? The wreckage? The chaos? Everything that I have had to claw my way through just to keep breathing?⁣ ⁣

I know and I am with you. ⁣ ⁣

And I write this so that when you read the words of who I am today and who I am becoming, you will know where I have been, what hell I have been through to arrive. Here. In a place where the illnesses still hold me in their cruel grip, but the agony of my suffering and grief is lessening. Slowly, but surely. ⁣ ⁣

Because I, too, was in the dark. And all I had was darkness. The positive, uplifting words written by others who were chronically ill left me feeling baffled, inadequate, like I was doing something wrong. How could they possibly feel light amidst this suffocating darkness of suffering?⁣ ⁣

Make no comparisons. There is no right, there is no wrong. Meet yourself where you are and hold space for you and your suffering wherever that is. ⁣ ⁣

You are where you are in your journey. And no two journeys are meant to look the same. So be gentle, be kind. Cradle yourself, this struggling body, it needs you while it hurts. ⁣ ⁣

And trust that you will get to where you need, whenever or wherever that may be.