I ran into someone this week who asked me, “Are you sick?”  I explained to her what was going on with my health, and I honestly didn’t mind talking about it.  However, as I walked away from our conversation, I found myself with an unwelcomed feeling.  I was unsettled, but I couldn’t figure out why.  I write about my disease, and am probably more open about it than some appreciate, so why should it bother me to tell someone about it?

After feeling sorry for myself for a good chunk of the afternoon, I realized what had been bothering me: I was no longer satsified with being sick.

You may be thinking, “but weren’t you ‘not ok’ with being sick the moment you were sick?” I’m not in denial that I have a chronic illness, but I’m not sick.  Neither are you. This may not compute, but hang in there. Let me explain.

Sick is defined by my phone (how’s that for a solid reference?) as, “affected by physical or mental illness.”

One more definition and then we’ll move on.   Affected means, “influenced or touched by an external factor”.

IC doesn’t touch me anymore.  

Ok, yeah, it flares up sometimes and makes me miserable, but it doesn’t touch ME.

The ME, the I, the whole that I am beyond my body is no longer sick.  I won’t claim it anymore.  I proclaim health over my body and over all of you.  

Since I started searching the depths of internet hell, when my symptoms started two years ago, I noticed something about the “spoonie” community that I am not going to be too popular, I am afraid, for calling out.  Whatever.  It needs to be said, because too many of you are falling into a place of despair and you don’t need to stay there.

For those of you unsure what I mean by “spoonie”, it is the term that has been adopted by those within the chronic illness community, coined by Christine Miserandino who wrote in her blog post, The Spoon Theory, that we only have so many spoons that we can use and then we’re worn out.  You use your spoons, and then you’re done for the day, the week, what have you.

My revelation was, people with a chronic illness, spoonies, assume accepting their illness means absorbing it.   Many think in order to move on beyond the “denial stage”, we must become our disease, submit to it and let it walk us around on a leash.   Being a spoonie means you are miserable and no-one will ever understand.  Life sucks.  Every day is a Monday.  Someone please pass me the poison.  Where’s the fork?  Stick it.  I’m done.

Dark, death talk is rampant in this community.  

No wonder I was TERRIFIED when I got “sick”.  However, I truly only became sick when I gave into the belief that I could not get better.  I started thinking my good days were over and it would be a miracle if I ever experienced true joy again. These thoughts were what were sick.

Hear me loud and hear me fierce: I’m not here to discredit anyone’s pain.  Pain is terrible, unbearable and people without it DON’T understand.  Read Our Pain is Real, if you want to know more of what I think about this, but friends, I started healing when I believed I could. You’ve heard me say it, and I’ll say it again:

You MUST believe that you can heal and you need to start walking in that direction.

The enemy, whether you want to call him the devil, negativity or the neighbor’s evil cat, wants to give us a crown of defeat.  He wants our bodies, our souls and our minds to be sick forever.  He doesn’t want to allow our thoughts, which have the power to heal and change and overcome, to believe there is any hope.  He likes us sick and miserable and angry, with death at our doorstep.

I refuse to live in defeat.  I’m NOT sick.  I am well.  I am whole.  I am made perfect by the light that exists within in me, coming from a place where no sickness exists.  Do I have IC?  Sure do!  Do I feel like crap sometimes and get angry that I got dealt this lot? Yeah I do.  I cry about it and I get angry.  But, I am not sick.

Disease doesn’t win.  You are not sick.

YOU are a treasure.  

YOU are beautiful.

Your illness does not define you.  Do not assume the sick.  Defy it.  Believe you can heal. Believe there is goodness and know that there is a better way to live than defeated.

If this resonates with you at all, can you do me a favor and subscribe and/or share?  (There are some super cute little share buttons at the bottom that are just dying to get clicked).  I want to keep getting these words to you and there are too many who need to hear their worth; that they are more than the disease which now feels like it is assuming residency.

Who are YOU beyond your disease?  Comment below!  (Miss Haddie decided to naked genie photo bomb my photo session with the amazing Gina of gingerandsunshine.com.  Thanks for the glorious shot, Gina!  This is just photographic evidence that life is still hilarious, fun, and oh so good – stupid bladder or not)