An Autistic Digestive Flare Up Story (with a happy conclusion)

I’m currently sipping a mocha latte with oat milk from my favorite local coffee shop. I am overjoyed that I can actually drink anything other than water — let alone my preferred drink.

Illness will do that to you.

“Illness” is usually what I say to strangers, but I will tell you the full truth. I’ve been experiencing a digestive flare-up for the past two weeks. Basically, my intestinal system became inflamed, causing extreme pain and sudden, urgent trips to the bathroom that were accompanied with even more pain.

As an autistic, it’s hard to identify one cause of my digestive flare up. It’s more likely due to multiple factors:

• Stress from recent family events (yeah, I’m being vague on purpose)
• Stress from recent plane travel
• Eating over the threshold of my food sensitivities (it’s an invisible threshold — so I’m constantly missing the mark on that one)
• Getting off my anti-anxiety meds

A digestive flare-up is incapacitating.

This is no normal “upset stomach.” My flare up means I can suddenly need a bathroom … and if I don’t get to one, the results are disastrous. I once grounded a plane on the runway because of it (you’d think it’d be one of the most embarrassing moments of my life… but I was in so much pain that I didn’t even care about embarrassment).