'I hated myself': becoming chronically ill at 12

The Rest Room

“I just hated myself. I really hated myself. My body kept failing me. And so I couldn't do all the things that I so desperately wanted to do. I couldn't be a part of friendship groups. I couldn't go out. I couldn't do anything. This thing, my body, which is supposed to get me from point A, point B, it's supposed to be on my side. It just kept on failing.”

That’s Natasha Misri, one of my oldest and dearest friends, and my guest for today’s episode.

Natasha and I went to school together - we met when we were about 13 and became friends sitting at the back of the lab and grumbling our way through GCSE physics classes.

Looking back, neither of us can quite remember how or why we clicked, we just did. We got each other, not because we went to the same school or because we didn’t particularly enjoy physics. Over time, it turned out that there was something deeper to our friendship.

Natasha was diagnosed with ME when she was 12, and we’ve talked a lot over the years about what being ill as a child looked like for us. About how it’s shaped us and the imprints it’s left on our personalities. We’ve also pondered a lot about what it must have been like for our parents to watch the person they love the most in the world suffer and not be able to do anything about it.

And that’s the theme of today’s show.

Being sick as a child is difficult to explain if you’ve never experienced it. You feel different. You are different. But you so desperately want to be the same as everyone else in your class.

It’s hard enough being a kid (especially a teenager) when you’re learning about the world and your place in it - but when you add to that a diagnosis (or a lack of one), constant hospital appointments, weeks and months of missed school, and friendships that feel like they’re balancing on a knife’s edge - it can, at times, feel like it’s too much for one child to take.

I went through school living with undiagnosed Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, and whilst it was a challenge, my experience was still relatively “normal” compared to Natasha’s. So, I'm really pleased to have her on the podcast today.

In this incredibly personal and emotional episode, she shares her story, and reflects on what it’s like getting sick when you’re so young, and the impact it has had on everything from her education and her relationships, to how she thinks about herself, even now.

To listen, you can just click play at the top of this email, or you can listen on Apple, Spotify, Amazon and Google. If you’d rather read the transcript of the episode, I’ve made that available on my blog.

A huge thank you to Natasha for sharing her story.

She’s not an online person so doesn’t have anything to plug, but you can find more information about ME via Action for ME and The ME Association.

A big thanks to my friends at Phlo for supporting this episode. They’re the online pharmacy that makes ordering your medication easy. Visit wearephlo.com or download Phlo on your favourite App Store to manage, track, and have your medication delivered at the touch of a button.

Thanks to my brilliant producer Philly Guillou at OG Podcasts, to Lucy Dove for the episode art, and to Amit Rai for my intro music.

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This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit natashalipman.substack.com