I am proud to announce my upcoming memoir: Meet My Rheummate. (I’m still working out the subtitle.) Below is the introduction to my memoir, the first time it is being presented to the world in honor of this day that means so much to me. I now present to you: Meet My Rheummate.
When I was eighteen, I met my Rheummate.
It wasn’t my idea at all. In fact I was rather insistent that I didn’t need a Rheummate in my life.
For the past decade this Rheummate has frustrated me, brought me to tears, been a source of embarrassment and downright just pissed me off.
She’s really more trouble than she’s worth, but the problem is: I’m stuck with her.
Don’t worry, you will learn all about my Rheummate and the obstacles she’s thrown into my life soon enough.
But who exactly is she? To put it bluntly, she is me – well, a version of me.
My Rheummate is named Rheumatoid Arthritis, although sometimes she likes to be called Rheumatoid Disease. She doesn’t like to be labeled by just one of her attributes. Rheumatoid Disease is an autoimmune disease that I just happen to have received as a birthday gift many years ago. And she’s like having a bad roommate.
You know the roommate I’m talking about. The roommate that won’t let you sleep at night. The roommate that can’t seem to function on her own so you spend your time playing mom. The roommate that butts in at the worst times like when you’re on a date. The roommate that is so particular and fussy that you must accommodate her for your own sanity.
Maybe you have siblings and shared a room growing up, or maybe you stayed in a dorm while in college. I’m sure you can picture that annoying roommate that just won’t leave you alone.
Somehow I inherited one, and she demands to be taken everywhere. I can’t let her out of my sight, even for a moment. She’s like the perfect storm: a mix between a drunk sorority sister and a threenager. I spend all of my energy making sure my Rheummate doesn’t do anything stupid that is going to reflect badly on me. What happens to her happens to me, so she’s always under constant surveillance.
Oh how I wish I could leave her at home some nights, but that’s just not how life is when living with this kind of Rheummate. When you have one of these attached to your hip, that’s it. You are stuck with it. It’s up to you to best figure out how to live your life with this dead weight kicking and screaming by your side.
Honestly it took me a long time to accept my Rheummate. One of the ways I have been able to cope with my new life is to think of my autoimmune disorder as an imaginary roommate. It sure makes it easier to explain to people I meet. They seem to understand my situation better when I can relate it to an experience they’ve either been part of personally or seen on television shows. The annoying roommate is a popular trope these days. Think Sheldon Cooper in The Big Bang Theory or Chloe in Don’t Trust the Bitch in Apartment 23. Or any episode of Three’s Company.
In this book, you will get to see how my journey with my Rheummate has played out over the last ten years beginning with how we first met. It wasn’t pretty, and the two of us have certainly had our fair share of fights and struggles as we learned to navigate the world as a team.
It has taken me years to become comfortable with exposing my autoimmune disorder to the world. Society makes it seem like it’s our dirty little secret to not be in perfect health mentally or physically.
When I was looking for resources as a teenager, you wouldn’t believe how hard it was to find someone – anyone – going through what I was going through. The books I did find were written by doctors or dieticians telling me all these clinical terms about my disease or what foods to avoid.
There simply wasn’t a book out there that I could find written by a young person with Rheumatoid Arthritis for young people with Rheumatoid Arthritis. I still haven’t found a book on the shelves written for the young people facing autoimmune disorders and chronic pain.
After a couple years of hunting for support groups online, I did make friends in my community close to my age – but what I wouldn’t give to have a comforting voice telling me in the early years “Hey, it’s okay that you’re going through this. You’re not alone.” I felt alone. I had no one I could relate to in my life. I couldn’t find comfort in books either because they weren’t written for me.
You know the saying, “be the change you want to see in the world.” If I wanted to have a book for young people struggling with chronic illnesses like mine, I decided it was up to me to make it happen. It began with Facebook posts in my support groups where I received comments from people just like me saying they agreed with my words. Some said they wished they could express their feelings about Rheumatoid Arthritis like I could but they were too scared to speak up about their frustrations and sorrows with their families.
I started writing columns about my feelings on my disorder for my local newspaper where I worked as a columnist and photographer. I knew I could reach a wider audience with my voice written in the paper. I received emails from people thanking me for being open and honest about my experience which only encouraged me to keep telling my story. Eventually I began writing blog posts on my own website with the intent that my words will be easily accessible to help those young people like me who are looking for someone like them.
It has all culminated into this, Meet My Rheummate, my first nonfiction book. In this book, you’ll get a glimpse into my life with a dash of humor and a lot of heart about managing life with Rheumatoid Arthritis. I found the only way that I can talk about my Rheummate is with a heavy dose of reality mixed with sarcasm. If it weren’t for sarcasm and dark humor, who knows where I would be in all of this. I figure, sarcasm is a healthier coping mechanism than crystal meth so…
But as much as I want to impart witty little quips and biting commentary, I must provide a trigger warning. This journey hasn’t been all sunshine and rainbows. There have been a lot of dark moments, and this book talks about them all. It would be a disservice to you to not talk about the really dark feelings I experienced during this journey. Be prepared to face my reality.
Also, I must make it abundantly clear that I am not a doctor or medical expert of any kind. My book is my singular experience with sprinkles of life lessons from some of my closest friends. Do not take any of my words as medical fact because what might work for me may not work for you. I’m no guru. I’m no faith healer. I just want to tell my story and bring to light the dark side of life with a chronic illness.
I’m not anything special. I’m not famous. I’m just an ordinary young woman living with extraordinary circumstances with an obnoxious tendency to dispel quirky bits of wisdom and advocate for my community. I’m just a girl with a Rheummate.