When I was younger I had never heard of crohn’s disease or IBD (inflammatory bowel disease). It was more common in adults. I was diagnosed at 11 years old and as I grew up I wasn’t aware of the seriousness of my illness and neither did I know anyone else with the same thing.

Fast forward 13 years and I’ve now connected with a whole community of IBD’ers online. I knew I wouldn’t have been the only person who had such an illness from a young age so I decided I wanted to write about how it actually affected my life. I know even as an adult a lifelong illness is life changing but I feel like being diagnosed at a young age has a HUGE impact on everything, from friendships to education and from puberty to relationships.

I also asked a couple of people to provide a short snippet…