Artifact: My Health

I have always been a person to strive for the healthiest lifestyle. No, I was not the girl who hit the gym every day or ate only veggies and eggs. I did, however, try to maintain my health by taking care of myself and always being aware of my needs, mental or physical. I have always been aware of how much is too much for me to handle and have kept away from pushing too hard.

My life got turned upside down in October 2019 as I got a diagnosis that would convey that I was not as healthy as I seemed.

Being diagnosed with a chronic auto-immune disease that will be a part of me for the rest of my life truly broke my heart. Nearly a month after my diagnosis and I am still wondering, “why did this happen to me?” However, I am trying to be forgiving of my body. I have worked my whole life to keep myself healthy, mentally and physically. It is no fault of my own for developing an illness. I am learning to find ways to be healthy with this new lifestyle rather than be upset and spiral into a pitying rage at the world.

While my health has always been of great importance to me, it now has a much greater impact on me. Not a moment goes by that I am not thinking about what decisions could impact my health in that moment.Not one decision is made now without me having to figure out how my body will react or handle it. This may seem heavy, but it’s only making me stronger. My passion to strive for health has only been encouraged through this. Yes, it is so much more work now to keep myself healthy, and yes, one little mistake could send me to the sickest I have ever been, but the fear of those consequences pushes me to work harder to find the healthy way every day. Since this diagnosis, I have been working on becoming a consistent member of the gym. I have learned so much about healthy eating and my passion for mental health advocacy has grown immensely. So while this diagnosis was the most heartbreaking thing to happen to me in my life so far, it has always been the beginning of a journey to health.

I pray that one day the efforts I am puttin ginto my health now will pay off. Maybe one day someone will find a cure for this and I will be able to live a healthy life with no fear of what could go wrong. Until that day though, I am going to continue to learn, strive, and grow in my HEALTH, not my sickness. Every day I will work to be the healthiest me I can be. My health now is a part of my identity and it is something I think about absolutely every moment of the day and I am going to always make sure I keepĀ health as my priority.

I will not let the trials and tribulations of life hold me back from living to be the healthy version of myself I have always dreamed of being. This diagnosis is not a notion of failure, but a motivator to success.