"What meds are you on?" "Remicade" "Oh, I was on that a couple years back, I hope it works for you"
The old saying "misery loves company" could have been written by people with chronic illnesses. However, I've found that spending too much time with other Crohnies can sometimes generate more misery than it alleviates.
As a young IBD patient, I was routinely recommended to attend IBD patient meet ups, which gave kind of a support group atmosphere. The problem is that if you cram a bunch of teenagers, with the exact same illness from a very small area into a room for a couple hours. Things get personal and angsty. Fast.
These meet ups, instead of making me feel like I was less alone in having a chronic illness, and more justified and intensified my feelings of "why me?", anger and hostility towards my illness, body, and even caregivers. This was NOT a productive or enjoyable attitude to have.
I made a certain friend who also had Crohn's and her outlook corrupted me to be untrusting to my doctor, and generally feel like "the world did this to me". It was awful.
Luckily after only a short time I realized how ridiculous this whole viewpoint was. I cut my ties with her, and have since been reluctant to make friends with other IBDers.
However, I did NOT cut myself off from peer support. I find it extremely positive to connect with other people with chronic illnesses. When you're in a mix, everyone shares sympathies of difficulty dealing with the burden of illness, feeling isolated and depressed, dealing with medications and side effects and other commonalities. But no one shares the exact same doctor, exact same symptoms or exact same stories.
This has been my way of finding peer support that actually benefitted me, rather than dragging me down into a dark abyss of negativity.
