It is okay to be angry. It is more fun to be angry together.

The anger after being diagnosed with an autoimmune disease didn’t come all at once. One day it was just… there. Not the explosive roid-rage and wanting to throw-things-at-the-wall kind of anger. More like a steady, simmering realization of:

Well. This is complete bullshit.

Because here’s the part no one prepares you for. I did everything right. I took meticulous care of my patients. I took meticulous care of my body. I didn’t smoke. I didn’t drink. I was a marathon runner. Hydrated like it was a competitive sport. Tracked workouts. Strength trained. Stretched. Foam rolled. Was my diet great? It could have been better. I love sugar. But it wasn’t horrific. I just believed—perhaps a little too naively—that effort translated into protection. I trusted the unspoken equation most of us carry around without ever questioning it:

Healthy choices → healthy outcome.

Turns out the immune system does not honor that contract. Disease does not care about your resting heart rate. It doesn’t check your endurance levels. It doesn’t pause and say: You’ve lived a nice, healthy life. Nope.

The immune system just wakes up one day and chooses violence.

That realization was infuriating and it wasn’t directed at anyone or anything in particular. Just the general unfairness of biology and the “why me” pity party...At the betrayal of a body I had trusted for decades. Anger, it turns out, is part of grief and boy was I grieving.  I remember staring at my legs and thinking, These used to carry me 26.2 miles voluntarily. Now I look like a liver patient who can’t make it up the stairs.

I missed things I had never even thought about before. Or thought that I would ever have to miss. Effortless endurance. The casual confidence in my own strength. The assumption that if I treated my body well, it would return the favor. Running had always been my reset button. My therapy. My predictable constant.

Bad day? Run.

Stressed? Run.

Need to think? Run.

Need to avoid thinking? Also run.

Running had always been the one thing my body and I agreed on. Until suddenly it wasn’t. Now my body was… unpredictable, unreliable, like our computer system at work. But I realized that the loss wasn’t just physical. It was partly my identity. Who am I if I’m not the healthy one? If I’m not the person who outruns stress instead of managing it with medication schedules and follow-up appointments?

There’s also a very specific internal conversation chronic illness patients eventually have with themselves.

Mine went something like this:

Me: I did everything right.

Also me: Biology doesn’t reward effort consistently.

Me: That seems deeply unfair.

Also me: Correct.

Me: I would like to speak with management.

Also me: There is no management.

It’s an uncomfortable truth. Healthy choices absolutely matter. They influence risk. They improve outcomes. But they do not guarantee immunity. You can be disciplined. Active. Responsible.…and still get sick. Accepting that feels like letting go of a comforting lie we’ve all quietly believed.

But if illness isn’t your fault…then neither is needing help.

Acceptance is another word people misunderstand. It doesn’t mean you’re happy about it. It doesn’t mean you like it. It definitely doesn’t mean you stop wishing things were different. Acceptance just means you stop arguing with reality. For me, that part was difficult. It meant taking medications, adjusting expectations, redefining what strength meant and realizing this was my new normal. Once reality had made itself very clear, arguing with it was mostly just exhausting. For more than 30 years, strength meant endurance, speed, pushing through. Now strength looks different. It means pacing, listening to my body, adapting and resting. It sucks. I won’t lie. But in a strange way, it actually requires more resilience. Instead of calling it acceptance, I prefer the word adjusted. Because the truth is, I haven’t fully accepted this yet. I’ve just learned how to live with it.