Con­trol­ling Crohn’s Disease?

I thought that I was con­trol­ling the disease.

Up until my surgery at 23, I had in my mind the thoughts that I was doing well con­trol­ling my Crohn’s with diet and prayer. Really what was going on was that I had basi­cally stopped eat­ing any­thing. This did con­trol the symp­toms of Crohn’s but what was really going on was that I was becom­ing anorexic. I did not even see this com­ing as my idea of what Anorexia is, was all based around con­cerns about being fat or a bad phys­i­cal self image.

In my mind cut­ting back on what I let myself eat was not an eat­ing dis­or­der; I was just in con­trol my dis­ease. As the Crohn’s got worse I pretty much had cut every­thing out of my diet. Water­melon was the only thing I could eat with no problem.

Still think­ing I was in con­trol, my mind accepted the times I would purge as just another part of con­trol­ling my dis­ease. Not until a friend of mine called me on it did I start to think purg­ing was an issue, and I worked towards stop­ping that part.

Not purg­ing after I ate left me feel­ing guiltily and bad about my self. Out of neces­sity I still con­tin­ued to limit what I did eat. In real­ity this could only last a few years.

Guilt, self abuse and the fact that I did have crohns dis­ease finally caught up with me. I remem­ber it was the day after Hal­loween a Sat­ur­day that I started to get sick. I called my work on the Mon­day and said that I would not be able to make it in that week. By Wednes­day I called back and said that I did not think I would be able to make it back. The real­iza­tion that I had lost con­trol was start­ing to hit me.

S.