A few years ago, at 30, I was diagnosed with multiple autoimmune conditions quite suddenly. I lost some organ function and developed alopecia and lost my hair. Perhaps the most jarring is that I also developed severe OCD, something I didn’t really experience before. Navigating that has been difficult as it impacts most facets of my life.
Needless to say my life has dramatically changed in the past few years, and while I’m in treatment, I feel very unlike the girl I was.
I’m curious to hear if other women have gone through serious, unexpected, or sudden changes that impacted the trajectory of their lives — and how they’re coping today.
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I’m so sorry. I also developed chronic health issues and disabilities young.
I had to go through some grieving and anger to get to mostly full acceptance. Pete Walker’s CPTSD book has good advice on how to do those things. I generally also used mindfulness techniques.
I had to lower my standards and expectations on a lot of things. Give up on a lot of things. Learn to accept much slower progress.
I had to come up with new wishes for my life that were within range and new hobbies that my body could handle. I honestly am not really able to have goals in a time-specific way bc my health is too unpredictable.
It’s a lot of loss… which is why the grieving was necessary. But now it’s mostly just … my life and I’m not upset about it. If I could wave a wand, sure, I’d stop being disabled but I can’t. So I am just trying to find ways to be true to who I am within my limits.
How am I doing? I don’t know. I think I handle the level of disability, loss, and ongoing physical suffering a lot better than most people would.
But the losses and limits are very real and I have not been able to build my life into a shape that I’m happy with yet. Always working on it.
I’m also very burned out on managing my health and medical issues… usually I have two medical appointments per week, not to mention arguing with insurance, not to mention daily PT exercises for several years, a special diet, etc etc. So right now my focus is trying to address burnout when I can’t quit managing my health,
In my mod twenties one of my parents got a terminal illness and I became their full time caregiver. I gave up my career and was never able to get a good job after I went back to work. So I went back to school for something completely different. Shortly after I was done school I got a brain injury and haven’t been able to work since.
I get very frustrated with my life sometimes. I tried really hard but I’ve had bad luck. Parts of society, including doctors, seem to think that being disabled when I am young is a moral failing on my part. I am the most dedicated patient and work to improve my health every single day.
Basically I get up and try to make my life 0.01% better every day. That’s mostly working on my PT homework, eating healthy, going for a walk and keeping my place tidy. I also look for little glimmers every day. It’s usually something in nature that leaves me smiling. Sometimes it’s a voice message from a friend.
I had a massive real-life paradigm shift in 2019 when previously suppressed childhood memories were suddenly released during physical therapy exercises.
Every memory from my childhood is now cast in new light with new understanding. I can’t do the things I used to anymore either. My hips sometimes keep me nearly bed bound (I can still make it the bathroom, but that’s pretty much it), my hands are afflicted with fibromyalgia, and arthritis. So I even if my hips are having a good day/month, my hands may not be available.
It was incredibly isolating and discouraging to feel trapped and useless, especially with new PTSD memories spilling forth with new horrors.
It’s been over five years now, I’m healing in many ways and discovering new ways to exist and help out.
I’ve also got alopecia! It has taken some getting used to but at this point it doesn’t impact my daily life. I took some time to grieve my hair and have tried to do that radical acceptance thing.
Ummm my doctor misdiagnosed my pregnancy for 6 months … and after a bunch of tests, blood work, and an eventual ultrasound (to see if I potentially had cancer or an invasion of parasites) she told me I was pregnant at 35 weeks
…and before anyone says anything, I looked like I ate a burrito my entire pregnancy and took 3 pregnancy tests at 6 weeks that all came back negative, so I ruled that out of the mix…
But before she told me I was pregnant I was laid off from my job and the company could t afford to pay me for the last few months of work. So I had to pack up my entire house within 48 hours and move back home with my parents and had a baby a few weeks later. It was traumatic, isolating, and infuriating. I gave up my life, my friends, my career, and my community for a child I was told I could never have, and my ex disappeared shortly afterwards. It took a long time to move through the sudden shift of thinking I was dying to preparing myself to be a mom.
I read so many books, found a podcast series I started listening to regularly, seeing a therapist, really feeling everything and embracing all of it—the good, the bad, and the heartbreaking. It’s been 3 years and I am finally in a place mentally, physically, and emotionally to where I feel like I am in control of my life again.
But if it hadn’t have been for my son, I don’t think I would have actually found myself and grown into the woman I am today. But going through it… having to trek through Dante’s inferno for so long… it was hard. It was dark, and sometimes terrifying. But I experimented with things that brought glimmers to my day and made me take on new perspectives and teach me how to offer myself grace and compassion.
Apologies for the lengthy reply; I hope I answered your question correctly. My experience made me realize that everyone experiences something life altering or challenging at some point in life and that everyone deserves kindness and compassion because life is hard. Challenges, setbacks, and road closures are imminent. I guess learning that I could either control the narrative of my story or let the narrative control and define me.
Oh I have a good one to tell you.
in 2019 I was at a very high position in management with a lovely pay check but my boss sold the company to a bigger company whose management were very sexist and I did not manage to get along with them. Long story short in 2020 I decided I would leave my very successful position and take a few months off (I was very stressed and burned out from both work and major personal issues in my life), before searching for another position. Do we see where this is going?
Well my last Friday at work was the last free day before the first lockdown hit on Monday in my country. I could not believe it, a global pandemic had begun and I had left my stable good income job and was now unemployed during a pandemic, living on my own off of my savings. My brother and father got laid off in the beginning of the pandemic, leaving our family with one single member who still had a job – my mom. I cannot tell you how stressful it was and how worried we all were.
I ended up being unemployed for almost a year. I was shocked and scraed at first, but then I figured out how long my savings will last me. During the pandemic nobody was hiring anything even close to what my previous positions were, so I had rethink my entire approach, CV, industry etc. I made a gameplan, I restructured my CV, I changed industries and managed to land a job in a new sector, with a relatively small pay cut. I picked the company very carefully, and applied eventhough I barely covered their requirements 😀
I have fully recovered since this period in my life, but man it was WILD to have quit right before the pandemic and be unemployed during, it was absolutely biblical, I still can’t believe it happened and I did that 😀
Oh dear… I’m so sorry. I can relate. Mine changed when I had a series of traumatic events around my 30’s, encounters with narcissistic men that damaged me in my trust issues and the worst was my roommate and friend taking her life on my 30th birthday. Everything’s different since then.
I got a divorce. 6 months after I left, I met a man. Hitched my horse to his wagon and moved 3,000 miles away with no family and no support. I just started working again and things actually seem to have turned out okay, actually.
Absolutely. In 2023 I was 31 and thought my life was finally where I wanted it to be – married, trying to get pregnant for the first time, living in my dream small town in the mountains, in a lovely rental and working on buying a house.
I then was diagnosed with late stage ovarian cancer, had a total hysterectomy, and had to move back to my hometown to be closer to medical treatment.
It’s been…really hard. I often find I don’t know what to do with myself because my life is so radically different from what I wanted and dreamed of. I have a therapist who is great, and a supportive husband and best friend who are wonderful. I am at this point feeling pretty low and not coping well but I try and take it day by day, because that’s all I can really do. I also am in some online discord/reddit support groups that help – talking with people who have been in the same place and understand how you feel is really validating. For the moment I’m trying to work on better coping skills as well – exercise, socializing, hobbies. It’s hard but it’s all I can do.