Irritable Bowel Syndrome Message Boards | Re: What is it like to be normal?

Here's my version - not sure if it's exactly the same thing. IBS can be so disruptive to anything approaching a normal life that it becomes almost impossible to focus on other things in life. I think I'm just now - after over a year on Heather's diet and 6 months of feeling pretty good - starting to really pay attention to other aspects of my life that I put "on hold" because of the IBS. I still find myself automatically thinking that I can't do this, that, or the other because of my IBS. In reality, with some planning and my handy-dandy Immodium, there probably isn't much I couldn't tackle at this point.

Realizing that is good, of course, but there's also a sense of not knowing who I am if I'm not this person whose life is constrained by IBS. It's weird, but I also think it's normal. Perhaps we're just out of practice at other aspects of our lives. After all, when my IBS was bad, I didn't have to make a lot of decisions about what I was going to do today or whether I was going to go to a party or movie or whether I wanted to start a new project or even move my checking account to another bank - it just wasn't going to happen because I was "too sick". Now the world has opened up again and it's both exciting and kind of scary. I knew how to have IBS; I'm not sure I remember how to be "normal". (Hmmm. It's sounding more and more like it might be time for the hypno tapes.)

HTH.

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[Research tells us fourteen out of any ten individuals likes chocolate. - Sandra Boynton]

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