Welcome to Bite Back

A comforting-ish resource for the invisibly (and/or chronically) (and/or bitterly) ill.

Exactly seven months ago, my intestines exploded. Like, bing-bop-boom-boom-boom-pop-bam exploded! It turns out it’s not good or chill for your intestines to explode. When your intestines explode, your bowels freeze up. You go septic. You exclusively tube-feed. You have no other way to exist other than to let time pass. So you drop everything to claw your way back to life, let alone normalcy.

The explosion changed everything. I woke up one day and was hospitalized for months, unable to see or talk to my baby. Unable to work. Unable to eat. Unable to think logically or clearly. I was distraught, depressed, demoralized, etc., etc., blah, blah. I remain that way most of the time, and yet!

…In the months after the hospitalization, I’ve realized not so much of the experience was unfamiliar to me. The explosion was really just the latest Whole Fucking Thing in a 25-year stretch as a constantly and chronically ill human. I’ve been hospitalized for weeks on end before, not allowed to eat or sleep or exist the way I normally would. I’ve been opened up and stapled shut and subsequently immobile and then mildly mobile and then totally mobile more times than I can count. What’s different this time around is that I am, as of now, unable to pass as an invisibly ill person. And, boy, has that fucked me all the way up.

Sad n septic n unaware ‘twas all about to go to shit.

We’re all sick and depressed. What’s different about this? What are we doing here?

No, no, I know. But I’ve never come across anything that even tries to understand why I feel the way I do. The only thing that’s ever made me feel close to validated as an invisibly ill person is a very combative IBS-D-centric subreddit. And even then, I don’t think I was a happier, more reasonable person for having sifted through comments on whose diarrhea was more upsetting that day. (I have Crohn’s, I should say. I have it so bad!)

…and wouldn’t you know it? After more than 13 years as a writer, editor, and host in magazines and food media, I got laid off from my cool food editing job in the midst of the most trying medical crisis of my life to date. It’s fine, I guess? I was not a super fun food editor when I couldn’t, like, eat food. The termination and the simultaneous free-fall into/out of my latest near-death experience has given me a lot of time to think. And I think everything I’ve learned as a chronically ill-but-still-cool blogger could help foster community here. I thiiink I can turn the very specific skills I’ve honed all of these years into a lot of legitimately comforting and relatable~* nonsense for anyone in similarly sickly shoes. For anyone, really, who is just trying to keep their head above water and taking pains for no one else to notice.

Sounds sick. Sounds depressing!

I know, right?! But like I said, I am sick and I am depressed and I am thusly unemployed. Plus, I know there is comfort in reading about the experiences of other people who are also just barely hanging in there. So for now, the plan is to send one of these guys out weekly on Thursdays, each of which will contain the following:

• An update on how I’m doing and feeling (objectively)

  • An update on how I’m doing and feeling (subjectively)

• Related tips from chronic illness and mental health experts on managing things like the above (profesh! And objective!)

• What I’m consuming, both literally and literarily, because, again, I am a food and content monster who’s been deprived of food and fun

Sad n septic n fully aware it had all completely gone to shit.

Eventually, I hope to send an additional weekly paid version of this blast that’ll blow out some of the above as such:

• What I’m eating (objective—recipe included)

• What I’m consuming (see first bullet)

• Low-energy parenting tips, activities, and recipes for anyone who’s got only ~25 percent left in the tank

• Reader Q&A re: managing any of this shit

Or, you know, you’ll tell me what you want from a chronically ill new-ish mom who (1) has just started to eat food again, (2) isn’t quite on the right SSRI, and (3) loves yapping and I’ll pivot to that instead. Ideally, we’ll all just kind of talk about whatever feels cathartic amidst all the sickness and depression.

"Bite Back,” though?

It’s a sassy attempt at blogging by a down-bad millennial who’s just started eating again after months of no food. I thought it worked? I played with “In the Bag” for a minute (bonus points for anyone who’s already clocked the inflammatory bowel disease x starter blog/life-reforming, pep-talking joke), but this felt more correct at this moment. I don’t have anything in the bag right now. But I do have a lot of anger and bubbling desire to get myself better than ever. Maybe high-horse pep-talking bits is where this ultimately lands. But in theory, this beginning part will be neither sick nor exhausting, but uplifting and bolstering in a dark and twisty way. So get in here, you sickos. (See: subscribe.)

Art by Amanda Suarez