“Do You Ever Write Anything Happy?”

By Antonia at Unremarkable Me

Let’s start with something uncomfortable.

A few days ago, someone asked me—half-joking, half-serious—if I ever write anything “normal.”“You know, something a bit… happier.”They said it like they were doing me a favour. Like they were gently nudging me back toward acceptability, as if my words had been just a bit too raw for polite company.

Then they added, “You always seem so angry.”

Cue the nervous laugh—the one people use when they’re desperately hoping you won’t say something awkward at Karen’s birthday brunch.

I smiled. Sort of. And changed the subject. Sort of. But inside? I was already writing this.

Because here’s the truth:

Living with chronic illness has changed me in ways I could never have anticipated.It’s carved into me. Torn me open. Then stitched me back together with fewer illusions and far less tolerance for bullshit.It’s handed me a mirror and whispered, “Now look closer.”

It’s shown me strength I never wanted and exposed vulnerabilities I worked hard to hide. And while it hasn’t gifted me joy wrapped in Pinterest-approved packaging, it has given me a voice. A fire. And a radical sense of clarity that only comes from learning to live in a body that doesn’t follow the rules.

So yes. Sometimes, what I write is angry.

Because this isn’t fiction. This is survival, grief, humour, and hope—all jumbled together. This is what happens when you're expected to smile through suffering and perform gratitude while being dismissed in waiting rooms.

I don’t write about cupcakes. I write about my reality .And unless you’re offering to foot my therapy bills, I’ll continue writing my “angry nonsense,” thanks.

But here’s the thing that caught me off guard. That question—“Do you ever write anything happy?”—wouldn’t leave me alone. Not because it was right. But because it was reductive. Because it assumed that anger and joy can’t co-exist.

And when I finally gave it the side-eye and sat with it for more than a minute, something surprising happened:

I found something resembling gratitude.

What Chronic Illness Gave Me (That I Didn’t Expect to Be Grateful For)

I’m not grateful for being sick. Let’s be clear.

But I am grateful for what being sick has revealed, forced, and stripped bare. And when you live in a chronically ill body, you learn to find meaning in the strangest, sharpest corners.

1. A Relationship With My Body That Isn’t Based on Appearance

Before illness, my body was something to discipline, decorate, and drive into the ground.Now? It’s something I listen to.I respect it. Not because it’s symmetrical or strong—but because it keeps showing up, even when the world tells it not to bother.

2. Boundaries That Aren’t Negotiable

I used to be a chronic people-pleaser. (Now I’m just chronically ill and pleasing only to those who get it.)

Illness taught me that boundaries aren’t rude—they’re oxygen.I don’t need a spreadsheet of excuses or an emotional TED Talk to justify saying no.“No” is a full sentence. Chronic illness taught me the grammar.

3. A Radar for Real Ones

Illness burns away the surface-level friendships like a low-grade fever. What’s left are the real ones: the people who show up without fanfare, who don’t flinch when things get ugly. If you want to find your people, get sick. Watch who stays.

4. Permission to Rest Without Earning It

Rest used to feel like failure. Like laziness. But when rest becomes survival, you learn to stop apologising for it.I don’t need to “earn” rest. I need it because I’m alive. That’s enough.

5. A Voice I’d Spent Years Silencing

I used to think being agreeable was the same as being kind. That keeping quiet made me easier to love.

But pain cracked that silence open.

At first, it was a whisper. A shaky correction. A half-hearted protest. Then it grew. Louder. Steadier. Sharper.Now I speak—about EDS, about gaslighting in healthcare, about all the things I once thought were “too much.”

Chronic illness didn’t just steal parts of me. It revealed the parts I never gave myself permission to live out loud.

I Grew Up Invisible

Not poetically. Not metaphorically.Just… invisible. It was safer that way. Easier to manage. Less to explain.

I was the kid who asked too many questions—the kind of questions adults didn’t have the time or emotional vocabulary to answer. So I learned to shrink. To shape-shift. To be agreeable. Unseen.

But illness doesn’t let you stay invisible.

It drags you into the centre of your own story—whether you’re ready or not. You can try to disappear. Believe me, I did. But your body doesn’t lie.

Eventually, I hit a point—somewhere between a missed diagnosis and a embaraicing fall in Tesco—where I realised I had two options:

Be consumed by this. Or live with it.

And that’s when everything shifted.I stopped pretending to be okay.I stopped faking normal. I started building a life around the truth, not the performance.

And that life, strangely enough, has given me more joy than the one I lived before.

So Here’s What I Am Grateful For

I’m grateful for the time I now have—time I never did when I was sprinting through 70-hour workweeks and pretending burnout was just “grind culture.” I’m grateful for real moments with the people I love—moments I can actually be present for.

I’m grateful for the slower pace. The more intentional life. It’s not glamorous. But it’s real.

Mostly, I’m grateful for the woman I now see in the mirror.

She isn’t perfect. She isn’t always coping. But she’s honest.She loves deeply. She’s learning.She’s doing the messy, unglamorous work of healing.

The 2000s taught us to “fake it till you make it.”Chronic illness taught me: faking it isn’t living.

Living is this.

So… Do I Ever Write Anything Happy?

Depends on your definition.

If happy means pretending everything’s fine—then no. I don’t.if happy means writing sugar-coated fluff to make other people more comfortable—then absolutely not.

But if happy means finding clarity in chaos, meaning in mess, and community in the discomfort—then yes. This is me I am happily & chronically ill

This awkward gratitude. This stubborn survival. This voice that refuses to shut up. This is joy.

It’s not neat. It doesn’t sparkle.But it’s mine.

If This Hit Home, Here Are Some Resources Worth Your Time

• Ehlers-Danlos Support UK – Advocacy, education, and support for people living with EDS.

• Pain UK – National charity for chronic pain advocacy and understanding.

• Mind – Because mental health and physical illness are tangled more than anyone admits.

• Chronic Illness Inclusion Project – Lived experience-led research and activism.

• The Mighty – Community writing and stories from chronically ill, disabled, and neurodivergent folks.