I’ve had Crohn’s disease for nearly twenty years. Even, at times, when the disease is in remission physically, it never lies dormant in my thoughts, emotions, or in my soul. It alters how I live my life in both the beautiful positive ways and the ugly and debilitating ways.

A chronic disease can be completely overwhelming at times. It can feel like being trapped in a prison cell. It never goes away. That piece of knowledge can haunt you and capture you. It can  make you feel alienated, confused and depressed sometimes. It can feel like nobody truly understands. Maybe they don’t.

I’ve had to get creative and find ways to escape the lifelong sentence of my chronic disease. I wasn’t made to be imprisoned. I force myself to look outside, make a plan and know that I will do great things once I’m free. I find ways to sneak past the warden, who I’ve  gotten to know pretty damn well over the years. It’s myself. No matter how many things in my body get scarred, altered, rearranged, or broken, I will forever hold the key to my freedom. Resilience, perseverance, humor, faith and hope help me dig the tunnel out. Sometimes, I force myself to follow the tiniest glimpse of light.

Healing is an ongoing process.

Healing is acknowledging my fears but not inviting them in for dinner. Healing is exterminating shame. Healing is letting myself feel the weight of it all: the unfairness, pain, loss, anger, and sadness. Healing is sharing my story and listening to other’s stories. Healing is giving myself the same extraordinary compassion I so freely give to others. Healing is forgiveness. Healing is changing, growing and evolving into a different person. Healing is allowing the hundreds of disease-related experiences to affect me. Healing is granting myself the permission to be different. Healing is acceptance.

Healing is always searching. Healing is often found in helping others. Healing is possessing a willingness to go back the opposite way through the tunnel I’ve dug, back to the darkness, to the prison cell of another. Healing is holding another’s hand, looking into another’s eyes. Healing is seeing a glimpse of myself in a hurting child, a lonely mother and a dependent elderly patient.

Healing is a gift that I open over and over again throughout my journey.

Healing is finding and seeing the beauty in the closing of wounds or watching the water run over the bright red flesh sutured outside of my abdomen. Healing is standing outside and staring up at the mesmerizing flight patterns of the barn sparrows. Healing is hearing my children’s laughter, holding their hands and answering their innocent questions.

Healing is my husband’s relentless, supportive, unconditional proud love for me. Healing is loving him.

Healing is everywhere.

Healing is found in accepting encouragement, love, support, bear hugs and help from those who surround me.

Crohn’s disease is healing.

I am healing.