The Girl With Arthritis

The older I get, the more my feelings on dealing with a chronic illness change. When I was a young teenager trying to cope with my new diagnosis and the severe impact of treatments on my life, I dealt with hopelessness and despair on nearly a daily basis. As I got older I realized I needed to change my attitude about it because I knew it was something I was going to have to deal with for a very long time, if not forever. Though I naturally do still have moments of hopelessness, generally I try to stay positive about my situation. If anything, having arthritis is quite a joke between my friends and I. But ultimately, I'm honest about it with most people. At least, that's what I thought until recently. Though I think I'm very open and honest about living with a chronic condition, I realized there is a certain population I hide it from. And it's certainly the population I should not hide those things from. That group would be the people I've dated. I think the ...