Support, Understanding and Hope

The Story of... Hannah, age 19

Hobbies: Photography, Psychology and Music

Hi, my names Hannah and I've been suffering with IBS for the last 5 years. It started with menstruating problems, I was having a period every 2 weeks! I put my IBS down to either the stress of having to cope with that, as they were extremely bad, hormones, being put on the pill or genetics. At first I felt ill, but could never exactly point out how I was feeling ill; consequently I gradually began to be absent from school more and more.

At the time I was seeing a trainee doctor, who just repeatedly asked me if I was being bullied, pregnant, smoking, on drugs or wanted attention. I got this same reaction from a lot of specialist doctors at the time. I was struggling everyday with the feeling of wanting to go to school desperately, but with the fear of being ill whilst out.

I went through a pretty rough time after this, I dropped out of school completely. In that period I tried to keep up with school work at home, but without the schools support I had nothing to work from. I went through numerous tests at hospitals, ranging from a million and one blood tests and scans to finally an endoscopy and colonoscopy, which weren't particularly nice! But at least my fear of it being something serious was put to rest.

After this I began to get home tutoring, so was able to complete my GCSE's, with some pretty pleasing results! It has only been since a doctor actually recognised my symptoms were that of IBS that I began to venture out of my house. I had picked up enough hobbies throughout this two year period to keep me occupied, but being able to go out shopping gave me a sense of achievement I never thought would be possible from such a trivial activity.

I'm now at University studying Psychology. The IBS has certainly not gone, and their isn't one day where I don't get some pretty intense symptoms, but I've learnt to cope with it better, and have now gained the strength to acknowledge that it doesn't matter what people think of my illness. And as the creator of this website, it has certainly helped talking about it, and reaching out to others.

IBS shouldn't be something that you're ashamed of, but it has taken me 5 years to realise this and to finally stick up for myself and my condition.

Hannah