Ever since I was a little dude I’ve always heard that old saying, “an apple a day keeps the doctor away.” Well they fucking lied. I’ve been eating apples for weeks now and it turns out, the more I eat them the more I seem to visit a doc. However, I cannot solely attribute my frequency of visiting providers solely to my dietary habits. But hey, week after next I do get to swallow a really neat piece of technology. A pill with a camera that will take pictures of my gastrointestinal system from beginning …to end. I had a test called flex sigmoidoscopy last week but that didn’t reach the target area to find what the specialist believes to be ailing me at the present moment. I was supposed to have a colonoscopy but the only person I know where I am currently residing…well I’m not their concern any longer …and I’m not allowed to take a taxi home because you’re supposed to be “watched” after the procedure. Personally, I think a “pill cam” sounds a lot cooler than colonoscopy and I tend to get fluffy feet when I have anesthesia.

I missed group therapy last week due to exploring in Colorado. I shouldn’t say missed because I didn’t. So instead I’ll say I was unable to attend secondary to not being in town. Group therapy recently has made me feel more isolated. I’m glad I only have to go once per week as a requirement of being a member of the community garden. I mostly feel isolated due to me not knowing anyone here and most everyone in group has someone attend with them. Also, the I rarely see the same people twice there. I’m not sure if that’s secondary to switching up their days or if they stop coming. I hope it’s not due to the latter. Today we were asked to each submit 25 words into a container about how the disease makes you feel. The psychologist then read each one aloud and each person had to answer with one or two words of the last time they “felt” the feeling of the word associated with their disease. Most responses were within the last few days. That’s pretty significant if the twelve of us there have felt any and all of these feelings in the last few days. Mental illness is hard. Real fucking hard.

At the conclusion of today’s session I asked if I could take the words home with me as I wanted to generate a word cloud just to see the frequency. If you’re not familiar with what a word cloud, a word cloud is an image that is composed of words in which the size of each word indicates its importance that is reflected upon by the frequency or repetitiveness of the word.

I’d say this is pretty fucking accurate in describing how this disease “feels” but these words only scrape the surface. You know what I like most about this word cloud? Even with all the negative feelings that those who suffer with me feel, there’s still hope and strength intertwined with all those negative feelings. There is so much power in hope. When we lose it … it feels like all the lights turn off.

How many of these feelings have you felt or have been used to describe you as a person today? yesterday? this week?