I was nine years old the first time my back and knees started hurting.
Doctors dismissed it. A nine-year-old with knee pain didn't fit neatly into any category. My mother believed me, which mattered more than I understood at the time. We changed doctors. We ran every test, twice. At thirteen, my paediatrician — who also believed me, and who I'm still grateful to — arrived at a conclusion she herself couldn't quite believe: fibromyalgia. That diagnosis given to older people with really stressful jobs.
I was given some medication, some physiotherapy. I don't remember much of it. I was busy being a teenager.
And here's the thing — I really was. I had a lot of friends. I couldn't dance until 5AM, so I'd sit by the side and a friend would always sit with me. I genuinely didn't love sports, so it wasn't even that much of a loss. The pain was there. Life was also there. I just kept going.
I moved countries. Did the army. Got into a relationship. Studied, got good grades. Built a version of myself that ran on a simple operating system: nothing can stop me.
That worked. For a long time, it actually worked.
Then in 2018, after a stomach episode that wouldn't end, I was diagnosed with ulcerative colitis.
I tried to do what I'd always done. But UC doesn't let you.
Three months of sick leave. Two years of eating only potatoes, rice, chicken breast, and pasta. One dress I bought 8 versions and wore on repeat because anything with a waistband was too much. I'm still afraid of tomato sauce. And very quickly, the identity I'd spent years building ran into a wall. Because sometimes the poop can and will stop you. That's just the truth.
A few years later, after the short war in 2021 with missiles waking us up like a newborn baby, I developed GERD. Medically the least serious of the three. But the constant pain was the one that brought the worst thoughts… and yes, continuous pain will do that to someone, even someone that smiles a lot.
It was through discovering existentialism (basically saying that we are not born with a fixed nature or purpose, but must create meaning through our choices and actions) that something started to shift. Not a cure. Not a moment where everything made sense. More like arriving at a question I hadn't let myself ask before: if I'm going to be here — and I was choosing to be — what did I actually want that to look like?
And I got to a very real analogy for someone that can't eat a lot of foods 😅- You work with what's inside the fridge.
Not the fridge you planned to have. Not the one you see in your friend's kitchens. The one in front of you, right now, with its weird collection of things you didn't choose and a few things you did.
Making that decision — to keep going with whatever resources I had left — didn't feel like arriving at some big conclusion. It felt more like standing in a messy kitchen on a Tuesday, a bit tired, and deciding to cook anyway. Not because the ingredients were good. Because i was hungry. Because eating mattered.
That's what I do now, in my own life. Not finding the perfect conditions. Not waiting until the fridge looks better. Just figuring out, honestly and without too much drama, what's actually there — and what we can make from it.
It's not a glamorous process. Some days the meal is great. Some days it's just rice with eggs. Not a bad meal at the end :)