Chronic Illness Changes How You Remember Yourself

 

I was seventeen, exhausted, and doing everything I was supposed to do: classes, campus life, keeping everything spotless, while my body was already failing me in ways no one could see, not even me.

I didn’t realize how much chronic illness would rewrite my memories until it did it quietly, in the middle of the night.

It was one of those 3 a.m. moments where your body won’t let you sleep, and your mind won’t let you rest. That’s when it hit me: I was seventeen when this started. Not recently. Not as an adult. Seventeen.

I remember being busy. Constantly moving. Cheerleading. Dance. Walking all over Job Corps campus every single day like it was nothing. Going to classes every day, keeping up, pushing through the fog and the exhaustion because that’s what you were supposed to do. I remember coming back to the dorm and cleaning it like it was my own house, top to bottom, no excuses, because the mess felt like failure and rest felt undeserved.

I remember being tired, but I told myself it made sense. Of course, I was exhausted: I was doing a lot. I thought that’s what ambition felt like. I thought that’s what discipline felt like. I thought that’s what being young and capable looked like when you didn’t want to fall behind.

Now I know my body was already struggling.

That realization didn’t come gently. It came like grief does, sudden, heavy, and unfair. Because once you see it, you can’t unsee it. You start replaying moments with a new context. You stop remembering yourself as “dramatic” or “lazy” or “not trying hard enough.” You remember yourself as someone who was sick and didn’t know it yet.

And that hurts in a very specific way.

POTS didn’t just change my present. It invaded my past. It reached back and touched memories I thought were settled. Suddenly, I’m not remembering a strong teenager who pushed through exhaustion, I’m remembering a child whose nervous system was already failing her while everyone, including herself, expected more.

There’s grief in that. Real grief. Grief for the version of me who kept showing up to class anyway. Grief for the energy I poured into keeping everything spotless, together, controlled, as if I stayed useful enough, my body would cooperate. Grief for the rest, I never got. Grief for the compassion no one offered because no one saw what was happening: not even me.

And yes, there’s anger too.

Anger at how easily chronic illness hides. Anger at a system that teaches us to normalize suffering if it looks productive. Anger at how many of us don’t realize we’re sick until our bodies force us to stop, because we were praised for endurance, not honesty.

I feel resentment toward the way people talk about “listening to your body” as if that’s simple when your body has been whispering in symptoms you were taught to ignore. When you were young and capable and surrounded by expectations that rewarded over functioning. When collapsing wasn’t an option because everything depended on you holding it together.

Chronic illness doesn’t just take things away. It reframes everything you thought you knew about yourself. It makes you question whether your identity was built on survival instead of choice. Whether the strength you’re praised for was actually a necessity.

And there’s something deeply disorienting about realizing you’ve been mourning without knowing it.

I don’t have a neat ending for this. I don’t have lessons or advice or encouragement packaged up for anyone else. I’m still sitting with the truth that my body has been telling this story longer than I’ve been listening.

All I know is this: remembering yourself through the lens of chronic illness is not nostalgic. It’s archaeological. You dig, you uncover, and sometimes what you find changes everything you thought you were standing on.

And I’m still standing in the middle of that discovery.

If you’re still here, thank you.
Writing pieces like this takes more out of me than it probably looks like, but it’s also the one thing I can keep showing up for right now. This is the work I’m able to do, and I’m choosing to do it honestly.

If you want to subscribe, it helps me keep going,

slowly, imperfectly, on the days my body allows it. If not, I’m still grateful you read this far. Being witnessed matters too.

Either way, I’m glad you’re here.