A day in my life as a Celiac.
You wake up in the morning with a stomach ache. For most people that would just signify that it’s time to eat, but for me, it’s a 50/50 tossup. If I eat this could either make me feel 100 times worse, or make me feel completely better. Its a shitty fucking ultimatum to be quite honest. But the decision has to be made, and 9 times out of 10, I’d rather starve.
Get ready, because it is morning, and I am an adult, and it doesnt matter how much pain I’m in, how nauseated I am, how foggy my brain is, how embarassed I am at the acne coming out of nowhere on my face, I have to get ready, I have to face the day, and I have to go to work. It doesn’t matter if I’m carrying 10lbs of inflamation on my abdomen from being glutened or not, I have to go to work and I have to get through it.
Time to drive to work. Driving is one of the most anxiety riddled things that I have to do. I love it, but I hate it at the same time. In my mind, its the only place where if something were to happen in which my stomach needed to get rid of the toxins that it’s been poisoned with, I would have nowhere to put it. What could I do? What if I got in an accident? What if I have to pull over but cant? I can’t tell you the amount of times where I’ve literally thought that it would be better to just vomit inside of my shirt and get to where I’m going than anything else, because no ones safety will be compromised. It’s sick, it’s disgusting, but it’s the only option I would really have if there was no warning.
Get to work. It’s still early and my stomach still hurts, I still cant concentrate, I still feel terrible, but the only face you can wear is your game face. I’ve come to embrace being able to block my mind a bit and consume myself with whatever I chose to do, because at least in those brief moments, I wont be thinking about how much this sucks.
Lunch time rolls around, and I’m trying to distinguish what my body is telling me because of the nausea.
Am I still reacting from whatever I ate?
Do I have food poisoning?
Only way to figure anything out, is to eat. Eat, whatever I could actually pack in my lunch and be able to afford at the same time, because buying organic is nearly impossible without a degree (lets get real here) and things that are labeled as gluten free dont always fit that bill.
Get through whatever food I’m able to tollerate, and deal with whatever complications happen after that and hope to god that it’s not another fucking attack on my intestines. Continue to work.
Time to drive home again, which is lovely. Not only is there traffic and I’m probably feeling like shit, but I have to go home and try to cook.
I’m faced with this over 3 times a day. This is my every single fucking day life. I’ve learned not to complain. I’ve learned not to seek medical attention. I’ve learned not to even seek out advice.
I’ve learned that this is not fucking fair and that I’m not the only fucking person on this planet that suffers with this, so why is it OKAY for my country to allow these contaminants into my food and allow them to label it as gluten free?
By the way, I’m a STRICT gluten free eater. I don’t cheat, whatsoever. If it doesn’t say Gfree on the label or I haven’t researched the absolute shit out of it, I dont eat it, because I dont trust it, but I’m still living like this almost every single day. I went through years of misdiagnosis’s and false information with almost 40k in medical debt over that time.
I dont really get to do this. I don’t really explain to people the way that I’m constantly feeling, I just explain the disease, the origination, what kind of foods I can or can’t have, but I never just get to say “ this fucking sucks, and I fucking hate it” because I’m tough.
This fucking sucks, and I fucking hate it.
theartofmadeline
gamechangershow
ellievsbear
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