Before we jump in: This article was originally shared with my email community in July 2018. I’m sharing it with you on the blog today in the hope that it may be of some encouragement and insight to you in your chronic illness journey right now, and also give you a little sneak peek of what you can expect from Fortnightly Letters too. If you’d like to receive letters like this one straight to your inbox every Sunday, you can sign up below.


Living with a chronic illness is hard.

You don’t know one day to the next how well you’re going to be or how you’ll be able to handle the day ahead if your illness rears its ugly* head.

*Some aspects of our illness are pretty awful and ugly. It doesn’t mean we love ourselves less. Although some days, it’s bloody hard.

As human beings, we like predictability and having even small expectations of what the coming day will involve, but living with a chronic illness is a little like playing Russian roulette, day-to-day you have no idea how your illness will show its self and how that will affect your day but you can’t put your day on hold because you’re scared of what may happen.

It’s like you can’t wait for the rain just because the weatherman (or your app) said there was a 70% chance of rain at 11am. All you can do is take an umbrella with you, be prepared and hope for the best.

And that’s what you have to do when you have a chronic illness, take each day as it comes and always hope for the best. Because hope is the fuel that keeps us going. That and being brave and pushing through. Even when it hurts.

Be bold, be brave, be fierce and be unstoppable.

Don’t let your illness grind you down. Don’t let it stop you from living the best life you can live. Maybe you’ve recently had a bad day, but everyone has a bad day, although your bad day may mean you spent 8 hours in the bathroom being violently ill or that you’ve been unable to leave your bed all day or that you had to go to A&E or you’ve had to reach for your strongest painkillers and you feel like a massive failure.

Take a breathe and remember, this is just one moment.

One tiny moment in your beautiful and vast life and while that bad day sucks so hard and is making you so sad right now. Tomorrow will be better.

And before you know it, a week will have passed, then a month and when you think back on that bad day it won’t seem so bad because in-between those awful moments and bad days you’ll have bright happy moments where you’ll be so glad and proud of yourself that you were brave enough not to let that bad day rule all.

If you’re struggling with a bad day right now yourself, hit reply and let me know and I’ll send you something to brighten your day.

In the meantime, trying writing down 3 things or moments that have made you happy. If you can’t do it for today because you’ve had a bad day then think of 3 things or moments that have made you happy recently and write it all down. Every bright and vibrant emotion and feeling that made that moment happy for you.

Close your eyes, remember it and write it down.

And remember:

Be bold, be brave, be fierce and be unstoppable.