Last year, I was the girl who traveled the world. I studied abroad, skied the Swiss Alps, and slept under the sky in the Sahara Desert. Now, I’m the girl who’s scared to get on a plane again because the last time I did, I was in the hospital the next day for a Crohn’s flare.
Maybe it’s that store you were in when you collapsed to the floor and now you can’t walk through those doors again without getting a chill up your spine. Maybe it’s that meal you ate the night before you found yourself in the hospital. For me, it’s all of the above. Now, it’s planes, too.
There’s such an element of PTSD that comes with living life with IBD or any other chronic illness. There’s such an element of PTSD to IBD that just isn’t talked about enough and we need to talk about it
We need to talk about how those painful memories in emergency rooms and hospital beds are ingrained into the back of your mind, how you get one weird pain and you instantly assume the worst, because you know what one weird pain can do. How, when one thing goes wrong, you immediately picture the worst case scenario so vividly as if it’s already happening. These thoughts may not be rational given where you are in life now, but they appear completely rational to you because of what you have been through. People always say that history has a way of repeating itself, and when you’re living with a chronic illness, that thought of your past becoming your present is often paralyzing.
I’m terrified that the second I step off of another plane, I’ll flare up. When I think about it, my palms get sweaty and my heart starts racing and I want to crawl into a ball and hide from the world that often seems scarier in my head than it is in reality. That’s the truth about my IBD and PTSD.
The other truth of the matter is this: thoughts become things. The more you think about something, and the more power you let it have over you, the more likely it is to happen. The more I think I’m going to flare at any given second, the more stress I’m feeding into my body, and the more likely that is to manifest itself into not feeling well.
I know it’s not going to be a piece of cake or a walk in the park by any means. It’s going to be down right painful and it’s going to take some time, but here’s what I’m going to try to do. Maybe, if you’re struggling with this too, you can try it with me: for every worst case scenario, I’m also going to picture the best case scenario, like me crushing life, getting on a damn plane, and being flare-free.
Not only is mentally picturing the best scenario scenario extremely useful in working to overcome IBD and PTSD, but so is physically living out your best case scenario. Physically manifesting it. Physically making it happen so that this new memory becomes your muscle memory and the good thoughts slowly seep into your consciousness and crowd out the bad ones, without you necessarily even noticing the mindset shift that has occurred. I know what you’re thinking, that makes it sound easy, and it’s not. I hate the fact that most good things lie on the other side of the hard things. Most times in life, nothing that is important is easy, which is kind of annoying, but also pretty powerful.
I can’t say that I’ve entirely conquered my PTSD, because I haven’t. It’s still there. It’s still lingering. But, I can say that I at least have a new tangible, more positive experience to attach to the thought itself of flying on a plane. I think that’s an important step.
The fact of the matter is that, currently, I’m still navigating it myself every single day. Awareness really is imperative, both individually, in terms of recognizing the fact you are dealing with PTSD, and collectively, in terms of opening up the dialogue and creating a conversation addressing the fact that medical trauma is so real, and so valid. My hope is that, in doing so, we can learn from and with one another, and we can conquer our fears together.
