Just Keep Going

We all have days where things get too much. When it’s just one day every now and again, while frustrating, it’s not so bad. But when it happens for many days in a row, or it keeps happening more frequently, that’s when it gets really draining. Sometimes when it gets too much I feel like giving up. I’ve never believed that life was meant to be easy, but since developing chronic medical conditions, I've started wondering whether it was really meant to be so hard.

Find your focus

But this isn’t a rant about how hard living with IBS is. Instead, it’s about how sometimes you simply need to take things one step at a time. That’s because when you stop looking at the bigger picture and do your best to forget that IBS isn’t going away any time soon, you can start focusing on what you need to do right now to keep going.

I find it helpful to ask the following two questions:

1. What little thing can you do today to make your IBS easier to live with?
2. What little thing can you do tomorrow to make your IBS easier to live with?

Sometimes the answer is focused on symptom management, especially if it’s in the middle of a flare up. But sometimes the answer is focused on trigger management and preventing symptoms from getting worse or from flaring up at all.

The thing with IBS is that it’s a constant balancing act. You’re doing your best to prevent your symptoms from being triggered, while also making choices that will let you live andenjoy your life. But it’s not always easy to get that balance right.

Sometimes the balance is only a little off, which means that you experience some symptoms, but not so much that it stops you in your tracks. At those times, it’s normally worth it to have made the choice to risk setting off a trigger. But at other times, the balance is completely lost and things go haywire, making you rethink the value of the choices that you made. Now I’m not saying that you should always regret those choices that lead you to that point, because sometimes they are worth it. Instead, I’m saying that it’s always worth taking a moment to reflect and wonder whether it was worth it, so that next time around you can make an informed choice before triggering your IBS again.

Regaining balance

Regardless of how badly you’ve lost your balance, the key thing is to keep going. To keep finding a way to make your life easier today and to keep finding a way to make your life easier tomorrow. Always one step at a time, until you get back to where you want to be.

If you’re new to IBS, this approach might sound unrealistic. But after dealing with this for over 25 years, there are two really important things that I’ve learned:

1. I’m much stronger than I think I am and I’ve never once failed to make it through to the other side.
2. Things always get better eventually, no matter how bad they seem at the time.

So hang in there, do your best to stay positive, and just keep going.