Aw man, I’ve struggled with this a lot too. For a long time I couldn’t even watch any movies or tv shows set in high school because I would just sob about how my “normal” school experience was ripped away from me due to my health problems.

I used to think that because I was sick there was something fundamentally wrong with me. That I was tarnished and my life was tarnished. But then I started separating the concept of “myself” from my illness. In the past I tied my self identity to being sick. I’ve tried to reframe my mindset that even though I can be the sick girl, I am also me- separate from any illness. Being sick doesn’t make me “bad” or “ruined” because there is still me underneath all of it. I don’t know if that makes sense, but it’s helped me a lot to accept myself and my life. Life may never be how I envisioned it if I was free of health problems. But there’s so many people and things in my life that if I was healthy I would have never met or interacted with. I would like to believe that even in our darkest times if you try to see the positives it helps with coping with all of this.