3 years of torture
It’s been three years since everything changed.
Since my body decided to fight itself. Since I learned what “autoimmune” really means, not from a doctor’s explanation, but from the quiet pain that never really goes away.
When I first moved to J town, I thought it would be my YOLO moment, my brave decision to step into the unknown. I had no plan, just faith and a little bit of courage. I thought life would reward that kind of energy. But instead, I was given something else: a test I never asked for.
Living alone in that city is both freedom and loneliness in the same breath. You can walk around pretending you’ve got your life together, but when night comes, the silence hits hard. I’ve had those night, crying quietly, trying not to let the world see that I was breaking inside. Sometimes I wondered why I had to go through all this alone.
There were days when I looked at the mirror and didn’t like what I saw, because I could see the exhaustion behind my eyes. The insecurity that whispered, “There are prettier girls out there with normal eyes and health condition.” The fear that maybe people would leave once they saw how fragile I really am.
I used to feel left out too. Everyone seemed to be moving forward, chasing dreams, building lives, while I was just trying to survive another day without pain. It’s hard not to compare. It’s hard not to wish you had someone else’s body, or life, or luck.
But God never really left me, even when I stopped believing for a quite a long time.
There were small signs, small blessings, like the beautiful friends, people who came into my life when I least expected them. They didn’t try to fix me; they just stayed. They laughed with me, walked beside me, and reminded me that I wasn’t just my illness. That I still had light in me, even when I couldn’t see it myself.
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And my family, they’ve been through so much because of me. I know how hard they work, how much they sacrifice, just so I can keep going. I feel guilty sometimes, because I know being sick costs more than money. It costs worry, energy, and hope. Yet they never complained. They just loved me the way they always do, quietly, consistently, unconditionally.
Three years of torture.
Three years of lessons.
Three years of breaking and rebuilding myself over and over again.
Some days I still question why this had to happen to me. But maybe it’s not about finding a reason, maybe it’s about learning how to live with it. How to find beauty in the small things, how to be grateful for the people who stay, and how to trust that God still has a plan even when everything feels heavy.
I don’t know what’s next.
But I know this, I’ve come this far, and that has to mean something.
Author’s Note
I’ve kept these thoughts to myself for a long time.
Maybe I was scared to sound weak, or maybe I just didn’t know how to put this kind of pain into words. But writing this today feels like finally letting myself breathe, like telling the world, “I’m still here.”If you’re reading this and you’re also struggling, I hope you remember that pain doesn’t make you less worthy. You don’t have to be okay all the time. Surviving quietly is also a kind of courage.
