Coping with Depression and Inflammatory Bowel Disease

Sarah Blahovec, a contributor to Huffington Post, shared her personal experience with both Crohn’s disease and depression in an incredibly open and honest piece published this December. She wrote the piece a year after surviving a battle with depression that nearly caused her to take her own life. On top of this, she was struggling with severe and life-threatening complications from Crohn’s disease.

She began by writing that “Crohn’s disease is attached to a stigma due to being an inflammatory bowel disease since it comes with embarrassing and painful symptoms.” She detailed a nearly ten-year battle with Crohn’s disease, citing frequent weight gains and losses, flares from both the disease and from medications, and the hallmark defecation and bowel problems that the disease is stigmatized for.