Anger

Does anyone else get angry abd resentful towards 'normal' people? I find that since I was finally diagnosed with Crohns after a pill capsule that I get angry and despondent towards others.

Next week will be my 35th operation and I don't feel anything except numb towards the inevitable suffering and exhaustion i'll experience. It's as if the physical side of the illness that i've had for 24yrs no longer matters. What matters to me is the psychological impact, the time off work and the general feeling of victimhood.

I was sat at a family party watching everyone else talk about their careers, their families and the new houses they were going to buy and when it came to me it was my usual story of operations and Consultant appointments along with the usual awful jokes about pain relief. I'm beginning to feel the real damage that IBD does is to emotional wellbeing of its victims. The way that it keeps coming back and back to drag you down. To stop you from achieving the goals that you want to in life. Everything has to be a qualified success. "They did well despite everything...." "You must be brave to survive all that".

I'm sorry for that self indulgent rant but it occurred to me that sometimes we get fixated on the physical symptoms of IBD and lose sight of the psychosocial impact that it has on sufferers over their life spans.

Tom

Hi. Oh ye!!! Sorry you are dealing with this darn disease. The non crohnies of the world have no blinking idea,how it affects us at all. They just think it like a tummy bug... oh heaven if only it were eh !! As for how it affects our heads ..well thats not even given a seconds thought at all. Argh. At least here we get it, we live it ,we deal with everyday.
Sending hugs n support . Best wishes

Your rant is particularly fine. I don't know about anger but I am particularly emotional when going through a flare.

Yes i get it know what makes me angry someone complaining about a headache everyday this happend at my previous work we struggle everyday and no one gets it. Then im asking myself what are you complaining about? This affects our daily life work, social you name it

Hi everyone... I know my family sometimes can't stand me because as a newly diagnosed Crohn's person...when I'm in pain or when I just didn't make it in time!?!? I am so grumpy and angry! So today I googled to see if my anger was normal and was happy (but sad) that I'm not alone:-( I too wish people understood what we go through and due to the pain and embarrassment at time is hard so hard to deal with! Sometimes because I'm in pain and because I'm so annoyed, angry and grumpy that my fiancé may just say I'm done... Just so annoyed at this point. I want people to understand....

Anger is natural. My suggestion: channelize that to achieve goals in life. You are an individual in your own right, and should not be in fear of anyone saying "I'm done". If that happens, it happens. Please fight the illness (easier said than done) and try to enrich the world through your work.

The fear that someone might desert you, is, to my mind, counterproductive. If that happens, if I were in your place, I would have thought "good riddance".

Amen

smt said:

Anger is natural. My suggestion: channelize that to achieve goals in life. You are an individual in your own right, and should not be in fear of anyone saying "I'm done". If that happens, it happens. Please fight the illness (easier said than done) and try to enrich the world through your work.

The fear that someone might desert you, is, to my mind, counterproductive. If that happens, if I were in your place, I would have thought "good riddance".

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Thanks SMT, these are the usual strategies that I adopt but every now and again it's necessary (and healthy) to vent.

Thanks again.

Vent away Tommy, I can relate, for me it's not so much being mad at others, I'm angry with myself for things I cannot control (Crohn's, IBS, depression, anxiety and more) chalk it up to my personality or whatever, either way it sucks hard and the emotional impact not only with having CD for 25 yrs (flaring straight through for the first twenty three years of it) has permanently destroyed me emotionally and on pretty much every level, then take into consideration the "usual life stresses" on top of the physical issues, I'm about ready to blow a gasket.

I'm more and more thankful for only one thing in this life and that is, it's temporary, this is the only way I manage to make it through each and every moment day after day.

pb said:

Vent away Tommy, I can relate, for me it's not so much being mad at others, I'm angry with myself for things I cannot control (Crohn's, IBS, depression, anxiety and more) chalk it up to my personality or whatever, either way it sucks hard and the emotional impact not only with having CD for 25 yrs (flaring straight through for the first twenty three years of it) has permanently destroyed me emotionally and on pretty much every level, then take into consideration the "usual life stresses" on top of the physical issues, I'm about ready to blow a gasket.

I'm more and more thankful for only one thing in this life and that is, it's temporary, this is the only way I manage to make it through each and every moment day after day.

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Hi PB, thanks for your thoughts. I was a lot like this when I had my emergency sub-total collectomy and I was diagnosed with severe depression. After the failure of my ileo-anal pouch I was diagnosed with PTSD and the Drs moved me onto 40mg Citalopram. Along with CBT this made a fantastic difference at a very difficult time. 10yrs on and i'm still happily taking it and it's safe to say it's the only way that I managed to find the emotional strength to make a recovery.

Thanks Tommy, I just saw my GI this last Tuesday and my primary doc yesterday, I'm now going to be taking Lexapro to aid with my IBS-C and depression and anxiety...will also be seeing a psychiatrist since that's the norm where I live for patients starting antidepressants, just to make sure I get a complete DX from a psychiatrist so my primary doc can RX me what I need but she starts her patients out on a low dose of something until the psychiatry appointment is met, it can take months she said to get in.