Crohn's and emotion

I thought this time I would talk about the emotional feelings that come with having Crohns or any life long illness in general. Keeping a positive out look and laughter have to be better than any medicine out there in life yet they seriously seem to be the hardest to hang on to. When i first finally got diagnosed, the best thing I had ever heard come out of a Dr's mouth was "This can be controlled and before you know it you will be living a normal life". Well, I wont say that was a complete lie... but I will have to say that he sure did sugar it alot! I have still been unlucky and can't seem to reach remission. For the most part what I am on is not helping but better than nothing I guess. Crohns is so complicated and so many people have so many differences in thier "main symptoms" it can be very hard to find out what medicine is the right one for you and your body vs. all the rest. As we fight the on going "what medicine will finally work" phase, we all have our moments of anger and we all shed many tears. The main thing we all need is something to focus on, be that a game, TV, or in my case reaching out to the world in blog form. There are many things that we can do to change our emotions. Sometimes finally letting it all come out in tear form can be good tho, don't ever hold back your emotions for too long or they will come back to haunt you and tears can turn to anger in no time. Since being diagnosed with Crohns I have let my frustration get the better of me alot and in doing so have managed to learn alot about controlling these emotions and letting them out in a better way. First of all, you have to find out what triggers your emotions to go from bad to worse. For me, it can be something as simple as someone asking me how I feel on a really bad day and I go from sad to mad in .5 seconds due to frustration. When you find yourself at this point, you have to remind yourself that they care, people who care is a good thing so don't let that make you mad. I know all to well that common question seems to hit a nerve in alot of people because we are always sick in one way or another and for us to say "I feel great today" is usually going to be either a lie or alot of sarcasm. I don't mean that anyone should sit there and go into great detail and complain, but it is good to be open and honest. Just by telling someone "better than yesterday" or "not the best but I'm dealing with it and I'm in a good mood" can let them know that you acknowledge the fact that they care. Here is another great emotional roller coaster, one moment you feel fine then out of no where you are running to the bathroom ready to throw up or better yet waking up in the middle of the night with sharp pain. After that is all said and done, you find yourself torn between screaming at the next anything that finds its way to you or rolling into a ball form and balling your eyes out. Crohn's symptoms seem to give us that torn feeling alot. Best advice ever: make sure you have a book close to you and ignore both of these emotions at that very moment and just start reading and put yourself in a different place all together! When emotions hit hard and fast they make us all want to have a total temper tantrum. In fact I am sure to begin with I could have made any normal two year old look like a very mature adult. I mention reading first because it makes us use our imagination and while doing so we are automatically unable to dwell on anything else. If you are not into reading that much then turn on the TV and even if nothing good is on, just looking for something can get your mind away from the temper tantrum stage and help calm you down a bit. Since you are here reading this I will also add, get online and find something to do because the choices online are ENDLESS!! Online games, jokes, videos, music, ideas for crafts, gardens, and that is only a few to get you thinking. I know the sad to mad ping pong ball feeling very well, it seems those 2 emotions are a big part of day to day life when you are not feeling well. Sometimes it is best as I said above, just lay down and cry if you don't feel like talking to someone. I sometimes feel as if all I do is complain in one way or another so half the time when I want to talk about it I wont, so I grab a pillow and cry on its shoulder... and yes, sometimes I put my face in it and scream for as long as I can. It gets the emotion out without any bad side effects and I promise that you will feel like a new person once doing so. Well if you want to scream, be sure no one is around or you might have everyone thinking something is seriously wrong or just think that you are crazy. One last thing I would like to add before I leave this as is, keep a diary. As someone with Crohn's it is good to have a food diary to help find out just what foods trigger your symptoms the most, but I keep a Crohn's diary vs a food diary. It began with food, but I write in it about my symptoms and emotions as well. It can be hard to open up with the people around you in day to day life, but it can be very easy to open up to a simple piece of paper and a pen. I trasformed my food diary into my Crohn's diary because if I was going to write in it everyday, I might as well continue to keep it all in one place so I could then go back and read it over and over to help myself out in the future. I could talk about this forever as always but I am going to end this here for now, simply wanted to touch this subject a bit, promise there will be more on it as time goes on. Take care!