What I’ve Learned From Talking Openly About My Bowel Disease

Most importantly, talking openly about my bowel disease also helped me to understand, and then accept, it. Once I no longer felt the need to hide it, I wanted to learn more about IBD. Knowledge is power, as they say, and learning about my disease helped me to feel more in control, more able to look after myself and make my own decisions. Acceptance of a life-long disease is not straight-forward, but talking openly about my symptoms and feelings helped me accept the changes to my body and to my life. When conversations about IBD became commonplace with my family, this normalised the disease and helped me to accept its part in our lives.