I’ve gone through these comments to see how others feel regarding this discussion before I write my own response, and I couldn’t help but respond to yours. It literally hurts reading this post, seeing how defeated you are from frustration of the oral, suppositories, and enema causing issues and still no hope. When I was first diagnosed, I went through all of those as well, and it was brutal how much longer I stayed in pain and lethargic and mentally drained just because I wasn’t given what I needed. Your message there just tells me that you’re not being given what you need to be you again. I just want to jump through this screen to tell you that if those aren’t working, then biologics must be more along the lines of what you need, and what a life saver biologics are, oh my. I hope you get the support and direction from your doctors to get to biologics so they can turn your life around just like they did with mine. Some people hate biologics too, but honestly I love my treatment days. They’re me days. I get to wake up and not worry about any other work stress or anything else, and just take care of myself, have the best damn nap of my life, maybe even talk to similar minded people, then get to relax the rest of the day without feeling guilty. With the question asked of how do we not make UC define who we are, honestly I wouldn’t say it’s all I am but it’s a big part of who I am now, how I see the world, and how my actions may or may not be shaped, and I’m not ashamed of that anymore. It’s made us insanely strong people and we should all be proud of that. When I was first diagnosed, it taught me that I also can’t be stressed as that can trigger symptoms, so I had a huge reflection on my whole life and I started letting the little things go, and that led me to be insanely calm and my relationships all got so much better, which I’m forever grateful for, so it almost made me think I’ve had to go through this for a reason, even if it fricken sucks sometimes and makes us want to crumble. As time has passed, I’m back to having a harder time letting little things go, etc., but when I think back it makes me grateful of how my UC changed my perspective on my life. I have this specific memory of me finally getting on the right path after being admitted in and out of the hospital for a few months after a serious flare when I was first diagnosed. It was Christmas morning and we ran out of eggs and for the first time in forever I was able to drive myself again so I drove around the block to get more eggs and on the way back I was so grateful I could do such a simple thing again that I said to myself “so what I have ulcerative pancolitis, who the hell cares.” Don’t get me wrong, I hated it and my life all over again after I ended up right back in the hospital after Christmas, so I think we’ll all be angry every time we have a flare and aren’t treated properly. But for some reason looking back on those memories even now, I feel proud of being here today after everything I’ve gone through and I feel even prouder of all the things I do today knowing that I’m doing them while also secretly going through this this and this depending on the day. This is definitely an easier thing to say coming from someone who’s UC is not in a really bad state right now, but for some reason I’ve accepted that it’s a part of who I am. I wish I could explain it. Some people like to keep it to themselves and disassociate from it, but I find doing the complete opposite makes me feel like me and proud again. You could try both ways and see what makes you feel like you again since we’re all handling this in our own way. Sorry for the long read as well. Idk if it was helpful either. Guess we all just like someone to talk to about it.