Living And Writing With Chronic Illness

Becoming A Writer

0:00

-15:45

Living And Writing With Chronic Illness

Episode 37 of Becoming A Writer podcast.

Apr 12, 2025

Transcript

Send your Suggestions or Questions here!

Show Notes -

Episode Summary:
In this deeply personal episode, I share my 15-year battle with PCOS, the struggles I have faced in seeking medical help, and the impact it has had on my writing life.

I discuss the emotional toll of dealing with a chronic illness, the frustrations of not being able to work at full capacity, and my journey toward healing. I also open up about my decision to prioritize my health and the changes I am making to manage my condition better.

Through this candid conversation, I hope to shed light on the challenges of writing while dealing with a chronic illness and offer support to those who may be going through something similar.

Key Takeaways:

PCOS and Writing: How living with PCOS has affected my ability to write, focus, and maintain consistency in my work.
Medical Mistrust and Misdiagnosis: The frustrating experiences with 13+ doctors who failed to diagnose or treat the root cause of my condition.
Emotional and Mental Toll: The self-doubt, body image issues, and stress that have compounded my health struggles.
The Role of Stress: How childhood trauma and financial instability contributed to my health issues.
Homeopathy and Healing: Turning to homeopathy for treatment and the progress I have seen.
Taking a Break for Health: The difficult decision to slow down on writing projects and podcasting to focus on healing.
A Call for Patience: A request for understanding from my audience as I prioritize my well-being.

Transcript -

Podcast Intro -

Welcome to Becoming A Writer podcast, where writing inspiration is served fresh in 20 minutes or less, every 2nd and 4th Saturday.

I am Rubina Gauri Gomes, and together we'll learn how to explore, experiment with, and express our writer selves.

If this speaks to your writing journey, give the podcast a listen! If you enjoy it, I'd love for you to leave a review so others can find it, too. Don’t forget to share your suggestions or questions through the form in the show notes, and let’s grow this community together!

You can find more conversations like this and download your free Writer's Mental Toolbox PDF at rubinagomes.substack.com.

Now, grab a cup of your favourite drink, and let's have a quick chat.

Episode -

Hello, my writer friends! Rubina here.

I know I hinted at a different topic for our thirty-seventh conversation today, but my current situation decided that we should talk about something else.

Sorry if the audio of this recording is not good quality. I am recording this at a time which is not situation-friendly or recording-friendly.

Talking about my chronic illness makes me feel vulnerable. For a woman who has always put on a strong face to deal with whatever life has thrown at me and act as if nothing fazes me, talking about my pains peels off the steel exterior I have wrapped myself up with for the longest time.

But now, that steel exterior I had consciously or unconsciously created for myself to protect myself is crushing me. I can't act anymore like all is good with me. And if I continue to do so, it's costing me the energy and joy I bring to my work and my life. The price I pay for staying silent is too high. Not being able to write and converse with you about writing is slowly eating away at my life.

PCOS Enters My Life.

I have been battling with PCOS for the last 15 years out of my 18 years of menstruating life.

It was 2007, and I was 12 years old when I got my periods one bright October Sunday afternoon.

For 3 years, all went well until, in 2010, they decided not to be so anymore.

My regular and uncomfortable but manageable periods turned irregular and confusing. I started gaining weight, growing facial hair, and pimples became my common friends.

My mother, realising the situation's gravity, took me to the doctor. They'd give me some medicine, and I'd have my periods next month. But then, the month after, it was back to square one - even when I had the medicine and did everything the doctor told me to.

We also had the necessary blood work and sonography done, and everything turned out to be perfect. According to the reports, I had no problem. But I know I did.

Over the course of 10 years, we have been to 13+ doctors of all varieties, and nobody could help me figure out the root cause of my irregular and now physically painful and emotionally turbulent periods.

Each one tried to put a band-aid on it without helping me heal from the root.

Then there was this one particular female doctor whom I'll never forgive. She was the final straw in trying to get professional help to solve my PCOS.

She did two very wrong things -

One, she body-shamed me and accused me of being irresponsible with my health.

Two, she gave me birth-control pills (the regular medicine you are assigned to get your periods), but the kind she gave me turned me murderous and suicidal after one dose.

The feelings coursing through me at the moment were worse than the PMS that came with periods.

From that day onwards, I have had a major distrust for doctors. Since then, I have met other doctors (not for myself but for other family members), and they continue to prove my scepticism correct.

Meanwhile, as is the case in the day and age of the Internet, YouTube came to our rescue. My mother poured herself over YouTube and discovered I showed signs of PCOS. This led to me trying to help myself through diet, exercise and supplements.

Again, these changes would work for some time and then plateau again. I'd try again and fail again.

The mention of doctors, diet, weight loss, and PCOS triggered me. I had a hard time accepting the body I am in. Anything I wore, I'd see myself from the eyes of others, including my supportive family and friends, and judge myself for looking ugly. And I'd feel guilty for eating or even thinking about eating anything.

10 years of fighting this battle, and I was tired and disheartened.

Therefore, I accepted that I'd spent 2-3 weeks per month dealing with the pre-during-post symptoms of periods.

I accepted that chances are I will never lose the unhealthy part of my weight.

I also accepted the fact that chances were I may not have children because I would not be pushing syringes and tablets of chemicals in my body to do so.

So now, my only goal was to take care of my body to the best of my capabilities and deal with whatever my reproductive system throws at me.

Then, June 2023 came.

I hurt my back and had to get an X-ray done. Along with that, my mother suggested getting sonography done as well. I shrugged and agreed.

While lying on that table and getting my fallopian tubes and ovaries pushed, the doctor said, "You have signs of PCOS."

"Oh," I replied, but in my head, I said - tell me something I already don't know.

I asked her to recommend a gynaecologist I could go to, and I added, "Tell me a genuine gynaecologist who will actually help. 'Cause I have been to 13, and they couldn't help me."

That shocked this doctor, but she went on and recommended one she thought could help me. "But PCOS is a lifestyle problem," she said, "Medicine doesn't help much."

Now that Medicine was at the same page as my physical body, I went to our trusted Homeopathy doctor. She assured me that it was curable and started my medicine immediately. What I was doing here is getting some medicinal help (that I trust in) while I figure out how I want to go about this situation.

The second half of June went into that. Here's what I learnt.

My major culprit is Stress.

I grew up in a stressful household. My father was an idiot (to put it politely), and the trauma he unleashed on my mother, my brother and me still haunts us. We also didn't have any money and lived hand-to-mouth every month. School and later college weren't fun either, for my childhood experience had turned me into a people-pleaser out of survival who now was being taken advantage of. I still deal with body image, economic image and social image almost daily, even though we are in a better place now.

The lack of stability and security was so deeply ingrained in me that it was hard to be, feel or imagine the opposite. I had to "man up," so I am pretty sure that confuses my reproductive system and releases the wrong hormones at the wrong time.

I fell ill mentally, emotionally and spiritually, which resulted in falling ill physically.

No wonder the generally prescribed remedies didn't cut the chase for me. If they could, they would have in the last 15 years. The diet, exercise, supplements and medicine didn't work out because they were trying to keep the facade looking good while the inside was rotting.

What I need is DEEP healing. That's an inside job, and only I can and have to do it.

As I said earlier, I am tired of fighting this battle with my reproductive system. But, in the last two years, Homeopathy treatment has been of great help. Physically, I am still having irregular periods and have pain, anxiety, restlessness, fatigue and insomnia for about 20 days whenever I do get my periods. But mentally and emotionally, I have calmed down 80%. This is a big positive result for me, and this keeps me hopeful.

Writing and PCOS.

But what's PCOS got to do with my Writing? I hear some ask.

Imagine you wake up with a blinding headache. For a day or two, it derails all your plans, meetings, work, errands, and activities. And it irritates you that a stupid headache threw your day out the window.

That's what my reproductive system has been doing for the past 15 years, almost every month, lasting about 21 days.

This is why I couldn't converse with you about the topic we had planned in the last episode—it requires deep research and work time, and I don't have the capacity to give my all to it at the moment.

I got my periods in the last week of February. As of the time I am recording this conversation, I am closing in on 3 weeks of no sleep, lower back and butt pain, fatigue, restlessness and hot flushes.

I can't sit in one place for more than a couple of minutes. My brain can't process anything that requires more than one brain cell. I can't read. I can't write. I can't journal. I can't exercise. I can't relax. I don't hear what someone's telling me. Some days, I am barely making it out of the bed.

Not being able to write my books or prepare for our conversations here is making me even crankier.

It's 3:37 am on a Sunday morning, and it's taking my everything to have this conversation with you while my butt spasms me and my sleepless brain tries to make some sense.

I am literally running on fumes and this is not the energy I want to bring to my writing.

Living with PCOS

On top of that, I am learning how to deal with the emotional and mental effects a chronic illness like PCOS can have on me.

The more time I waste trudging through my PCOS, the more time I lose on making my dreams of writing and publishing my books, helping other writers embrace themselves, getting a golden retriever, and getting a house with a hidden library come true. And that breaks my heart.

When I am in pain, my mother feels helpless, and that, in turn, makes me feel that I am causing her this discomfort. Not a fun place to be in.

Further, not being able to even take care of the day-to-day functionalities makes me feel less than, not enough, that I am taking advantage of others.

Also, as a woman, having your reproductive system not work how it's supposed to work subconsciously does affect your womanhood. Whether we ladies choose to have babies or not, our bodies are nurturing vessels for one. And if that doesn't work, then who are we? Coming to terms with this thought takes a lot of inner work.

Next Steps

15 years is a long, long, LONG time dealing with this PCOS of mine. Never in these 15 years have I stopped looking for help and for answers. Yet, every time I came back disappointed.

So now what? I am taking a lesson from my Writing journey and applying it to my PCOS healing journey.

The one crucial lesson I have learnt from my 10 years of Writing life so far is that you are your best help. You are your best teacher and you are your best student. Others will not understand the depth and gravity and the helplessness you feel. You, on the other hand, know exactly what you are going through. And therefore, you are your best and only hope.

In the early years of my Writing journey, I was looking for someone to help me and show me the way. No one came to my rescue, so I had to become my own rescuer.

Now, I have to embrace that role again to heal my body.

I have already started working on this, and I am keeping my fingers crossed.

Since I am dedicating time to heal myself, I will have to take that time away from my obligations.

This is the price I pay - it's either letting PCOS take over my life and slowly and excruciatingly drip my dreams away from me. OR I choose to put my dreams on hold so that I heal myself once and for all and bring the best version of myself back to it.

I will try my best to stick to the bi-monthly podcast episode release schedule, but I am also giving myself permission to be okay if I don't post one. Any other work I had planned for this year, including my new self-help book for writers, has been put on hold.

Conclusion

I know this wasn't the conversation you were expecting today, but I am done hiding the real me from you.

I remember a friend of mine years back praised me saying that I have all my shit together and know exactly what I am doing. During that phase of my life, not only did I not have my shit together, but I didn't even know shit. But this friend, seeing my social media and my writing, assumed that I was living my best life. She was so off the mark.

When it comes to making a presence online, we unconsciously try to present ourselves as the perfect versions of ourselves. As in, all is good in our lives and we are giving our 100% every single time. But that is not the reality.

So it would be a disservice to you if I sat here, pretending I was fine, and calmly talk to you about writing—while my butt was on fire.

I don't know how else to finish this conversation other than asking you to please be patient with me. I will not, can not, do not want to abandon you. I hope you'll stick around while I figure things out and heal myself.

And if you have any advice or experience to share regarding PCOS or writing while dealing with any chronic illness, feel safe to do so inside of Substack and YouTube comments. Know that whatever you are dealing with, you are not alone even if it feels that way.

Meanwhile, my friend, keep writing.

Podcast Outro -

Thank you for catching up with me today.

I hope you found some inspiration to help you grow a deeper relationship with your writer self.

If you enjoyed today’s episode, don’t forget to follow the podcast and drop a review! You can also share any suggestions or questions with me through the form in the show notes.

You can find more conversations like this and download your free Writer's Mental Toolbox PDF at rubinagomes.substack.com.

That’s a wrap for now! See you later!