​My whole life I've been different.  I suppose we're all different in our own unique way, but for me, my unique outlook on life was so obvious that my peers and acquaintances never hesitated to declare to me the obscure differences between me and the rest of the world.  I've always thought I was “weird.”  In reality, who isn’t weird?  As I've grown into the woman that I am, I've come to realize that at times we are too worried about being "weird" when we should be embracing our unique quality of character. 

In high school, I was different because I was "too skinny" because I walked like a "runway model" or because I was "too pretty and that was the only thing I had going for me."  I was ridiculed because I was "really awkward."  For some reason I always managed to be awfully clumsy.  I tripped over everything.  I laughed "too much" and I talked "too loud."   I got "overly excited" about my passions.  I adored the color pink.  I sang my way through life's troubles.  I wrote everything down that inspired me.  I gained a love for God and all of His principles and the way He lovingly guided me through my life.  I was my own version of me, and I was harshly ridiculed for that.  But I loved me, and I wouldn't want to change for anyone.

​Eventually I went onto college.  The harsh words of my peers faded with my past, but the words of peers past cut deep into my heart as symptoms and anxieties increased throughout my college experience.  Then I got diagnosed.  I got sick, and I wasn’t getting better anytime soon.  I never thought that one day I would wake up as somebody else.  But I did, and it was terrifying.  That's when all those words started to cut hard.  I had lost the person I once was.  I lost the person that people disapproved of because it was “too weird.”  I became a different person, but I wasn’t happy with it, and I didn’t want to let go of who I once was.

I increasingly lost weight when I was already too small for my size.  My “runway model” walk turned into an exhausted limp.  My face became pale and ghostly, my skin broke out in horrible rashes, and my hair thinned out increasingly more every day.  My "pretty face" that “was the only thing I had going for me” slowly disappeared as I observed myself in the mirror every day.

My clumsiness and awkward character only increased as my cognitive dysfunction and loss of coordination grew.  I spent more time crying, and less time laughing.  My loud mouth become quiet and unheard.  I stopped the excitement that pierced through my veins whenever I wore the color pink, or mentioned something about the beauty of writing.  I stopped singing.  I stopped my fervent prayers.  I stopped loving and the pain overcame me.  The reality of my younger years, was that I was ridiculed for being unique, so when those speculations finally hit me in the form of a disease, I stopped my unique frame of mind and sunk into the average sense of character and the "daily grind" form of life.

Today I’m not the same person I was in high school, or who I was when I first became diagnosed.  In some ways, I feel similar to a butterfly newly emerged from its cocoon. Some days, it’s too hard to fly because my wings are too new and fresh, but other days I feel as though I could soar for miles on my new wings that make up my character.
Am I still unique and have I carried some of my old self with me into my new self?  I would wholeheartedly say yes.  Over time, I’ve developed fears, hopes, dreams, and a love for people and for God that I never before would have imagined.  I’ve developed understanding of things that I thought I already understood, but I didn’t.  I changed, and I still continue to every day.  I still adore the color pink.  I’ve gained a new excitement for life and my passions.  I started to laugh my way through life again, and my loud personality blossomed into something that I appreciate.  I’ve developed talents and abilities I didn’t know I had.  I’ve gained wisdom and knowledge that I can only hope to further as I continue through this trial of chronic illness.  I flew like a butterfly, even though at first I was flapping like a crow.

Most importantly, I gained a love for my Savior and my God that I never before thought possible.  I gained a love for the little things in life, and I gained a faith that is only possible through the power of God and His love for us.  I gained understanding of why I had to go through this, and why I must continue to learn.  I gained so much from the power of God that my words fail to describe the paradigm shift that I have experienced in the past year of my life.  I’ve gained a greater knowledge of self-worth, and the worth given to me by my Heavenly Father who sees my worth as something far greater than the worth of rubies.

I’ve changed so much, one post would not be able to sufficiently describe it.  My message to whoever is reading this would be that God puts things in our lives to either bless us, or teach us.  God wants you to be unique.  My illness makes me incredibly different, and I've learned to appreciate that.  Embrace your unique self, and learn to love and see yourself the way that God does.  No matter what you are going through, and how close you are to giving up.  Don’t.  Don’t listen to the desecrating words of the world around you.  Listen to the loving words of your Heavenly Father.  He will always show you your pathway.  And He will always give you comfort.  I wish the best for all of you and whatever it is that you may be suffering through.  Don’t give up yet.  You are not “weird.”  You are unique and incredible in the eyes of God.  Never forget that, as God never forgets you. 

It's crazy how it seems like I've watched my body slowly deplete over time due to my Chronic Lyme Disease.  I know that nobody sees it except for a few people that I hold very close to my heart, but to my own two eyes, I look sick.  It's one thing to feel sick, but it's another thing to watch yourself be sick.  Watching my body disintegrate to what feels like nothing is incredibly scary for me.  Honestly, I want want my old body back.  I want to feel the age that I actually am.  I want to be able to run and not feel like I'm going to pass out.  I want to walk like I used to.  I want to be able to carry myself with posture and grace.  I want the color in my face to come back, and I want my hair to grow back to it's original length.  I want to gain the twenty pounds that I lost.  I want to feel and look like me again.  

Despite all the insecurity and hopes for my body to regenerate itself, I've learned a lot about myself since I've been diagnosed.  My perspective of my body and how I see myself has definitely changed, and these changes are perspectives that I will hopefully keep with me all throughout my life, lyme or no lyme.   

“The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of the depths. These persons have an appreciation, a sensitivity, and an understanding of life that fills them with compassion, gentleness, and a deep loving concern. Beautiful people do not just happen.”
― Elisabeth Kübler-Ross

This has currently become one of my favorite quotes.  I figure I haven't quite found my way out of the depths yet, but I hope to reach that destination one day.  I've known defeat, suffering, struggle, and loss.  These are all things that I have agonized over and over again in my head as I've gone through trial after trial.  I've watched myself bloom into an entirely different person than how I was before I suffered.  I suppose that happens to all of us as we suffer and grow stronger.  You don't grow and progress in a state of comfort.  You grow and progress in states of misery, pain, fear, and so many other forms of suffering that we as human beings go through. 

Our Savior, Jesus Christ suffered all of the sins and pains of the world.  My ultimate goal is to become like Him.  And in order to do that I must suffer just like Him.  It is through suffering that you gain the attributes of Jesus Christ such as patience, long suffering, hope, faith, charity, and so many more.  If through suffering I find myself one step closer to becoming like the Savior, then my suffering is completely worth it.  Just because I momentarily feel ugly, does not mean that I am ugly.  I'm beautiful because God created me to be that way,  and I continue to become beautiful as I center my life on Christ and strive to become more like Him.  

I'll never forget my high school Physical Education classes I had the pleasure of experiencing while I was growing up.  The concept that I acquired from those classes are that if you work yourself to a pulp working out everyday then somehow you're supposedly healthy and in shape.  My experiences in those classes were less than pleasant.  It was simply a long line of self absorbed teachers that worked their students incredibly hard and then claimed that it was healthy for them.  Well let me inform you that for me it just meant waking up everyday for the next week with aching joints and muscles and not wanting to even get out of bed.  No offense to all of those teachers of times past, or to even teachers now, but you're teaching physical education completely wrong.  

Keeping your body healthy and strong isn't a matter of working out so hard that your body can't move the next morning.  Health is all about balance in all things that take place throughout your daily life.  Eating healthy, a healthy amount of exercise, and filling your mind and heart with healthy pastimes are all a part of improving your physical health.  Being sick all the time has taught me that maybe I can't go on a long run everyday, and maybe when I walk on the treadmill I have to walk at the lowest setting, but that's the level that my personal self is at.  That's all my body can take, and that's okay.  Living a healthy lifestyle is something we all have to work toward, and for me it's hard.  I hate exercising.  Just as some people may hate eating healthy food.  But we can always progress in life.  I've come to know that through living a healthy balanced lifestyle, I can feel healthy and do things to improve my physical self, despite my chronic illness.     

Throughout my life I've developed a lot of scars.  I once drew a picture of what I thought my heart would look like if you could transfer it to piece of paper.  Pretty beaten up right?  On a creative tangible level, that's how I pictured it at the time.  I had been through a lot, and I needed a visual to get my thoughts straight.  I suppose if I drew a current picture of my heart it would look quite different.  There would still be scars, open wounds, and maybe even a knife or two gouging out a portion of it.  But there would be a special part of my heart that has been healed from past experiences.  Healed through patience, hope, faith, prayer, and lot of love from my Heavenly Father, and from the people around me.

I don't just have scars on my heart.  Chronic Lyme is to blame for not just emotional scars, but physical scars as well.  I don't like talking about my physical scars.  I don't like drawing attention to them.  I don't like their existence.  But despite the scarring that will hopefully fade with time, I don't believe that scars make me ugly in any way.  A scar, whether it be physical or emotional, is not a sign of weakness, but a sign of strength and perseverance.  I used to think my scars were a mark of defeat.  But I've come to know that they are truly a mark of beauty and continuance of healing.  As they continue to fade, they remind me of my journey with chronic illness and how far I've come.  I hope one day I'll be able to look back and hardly see them at all, but know what I went through to heal completely.  Some of the horrible things I've experienced through this illness I will always hold close to my heart simply because they've taught me a lot and helped me to grow as a person.  My scars will be one of those things.  Even as they fade, I still hold them close as a reminder of my incredible journey.