This morning, I woke up at 6 and went to the imaging center ready to let them push my body into a metal tube and take pictures of all my organs. The technician became interested in why I was there when I disclosed that I was six months old after birth. I explained my monthly visit which included an endoscopy, two colonoscopies, a CT scan, multiple blood tests and now an MRI (with insurance still refusing to cover it). medicine I must not die), along with a joke warning: You’ll be fine if you don’t get pregnant.
He bent down and said, “I just realized that I am.”
At that time I did what I could, to say the least. I had a higher risk. Immunity runs in my family. I had unknown symptoms from it childhood. It wouldn’t happen to her.
Besides, it is possible.
She said she already has Hashimoto’s, and the autoimmune disorder comes in packs, she said.
As I sat on that metal tube, listening to the screeching car and Carly Rae Jepsen’s voice through my headphones (I asked for Taylor Swift), I couldn’t help but think: Is it just a rite of passage to motherhood?
Two months after giving birth to my second child, I was diagnosed with Crohn’s disease. The diagnosis was a long time coming and it wasn’t much of a shock. I finished talking to the doctor, went to the car to meet my husband and baby, and then went to work. I didn’t have time to process a new diagnosis and a massive life change. There was work and two young sons who needed me.
As a therapist working in maternal mental health, I tend to work perfectionism very little The women I work with are overworked, overachieving, and often sick. I see women with stomach problems, headaches, high blood pressure and chronic painmany of them are too young to feel so old.
This is not surprising. Women in their childbearing years often experience intense physical and mental demands associated with them pregnancybirth and parents. Approximately 80% of individuals diagnosed with autoimmune diseases are women, and many autoimmune conditions first develop during the reproductive years (Angum, Khan, Kaler, Siddiqui, & Hussain, 2020). There’s no denying that something about the state of women, especially mothers, makes us sick. Research entitled Consequences of neglect in the medium and long term of labor and birth showed that more than one-third of women experience long-term health conditions after childbirth (Vogel et al., 2024).
Chronic disease feels like the price you have to pay for being a woman, less than being a mother in our culture. And now, mainstream culture is trying to convince you that it’s your fault.
There’s a new and growing dialogue surrounding chronic health conditions that isn’t unfamiliar: It’s all in your head, but not in the way you think.
A few minutes on TikTok or Instagramand you will quickly come across posts that suggest this Chronic illness is simply a manifestation of unresolved trauma or bad ego. While I don’t want to discredit the unresolved role injury and mental illness in the body, when you dig deeper into this type of messaging, it is often a new form of ability in disguise.
When I finally got my diagnosis, I was gutted sadness which took the form of a call and response:
I did everything right, so why did I get sick?
Then immediately:
So, is your illness not your fault in life?
I realized that this is the same puritan mentality that we all know so well.
Once you start seeing this messaging, you’ll see it everywhere. You see it in advertisements for anti-inflammatory diets. You see it in doctors’ offices and from therapists on the Internet. If you release your injury, move your body, take this supplement, lose weight, go on vacation, cleanse, start yoga, reduce daily goals– you will not get sick. And if you get sick, you should live differently. Try again next time.
Important chronic diseases to read
While I don’t think that repressed emotions cause chronic illness, I do think that we need to come to terms with what our bodies can’t continue to do, and we need to find a way to listen to them.
This is where the conversation can become more effective.
Although I don’t think I caused my illness, I do think it forced me to live my life differently. Living with a chronic illness challenges you to live differently. Excessive activity should be stopped. An inflamed and tired body can no longer handle emotional stress and people-pleasing. Perfectionism cannot live in a body that is inherently “imperfect,” and there is something very liberating about that fact.
So if there’s one takeaway here, it’s this: Women get sick, and they get sick a lot more than men. We have to look into it. We need research to find ways to prevent these conditions.
Living the “wrong” life didn’t cause it, and living the “right” way won’t fix it.
And yet, chronic illness calls you to live differently.
Listen to your body. Payment attention how you talk to yourself. Notice how you share emotions and allow your preferences to shift according to your body’s needs. First of all, give yourself time to grieve and process.
Your life is not over, and in many ways, it can just begin.
