Living with sickle cell disease can be very damaging to your psyche. I try hard to surround myself with positive people but sometimes that isn’t enough. So, I’ve found new ways to keep my mental health high and stable. Some of the ways I do that are: creating designs for my clothing line and YouTube gamer videos, editing, and hanging out with friends and close family members. Some things that may harm my mental health is when I’m talking to someone and they downplay or dismiss what I tell them or when they hit me with “well you aren’t doing anything right now and you’re not going to succeed in life.” I once had a woman tell me I wasn’t going to be shit with the attitude I have because our beliefs differed on a subject. The thing that mad those words hurt so much was that I trusted this person and I wasn’t expecting it to come from her mouth. Having sickle cell can make me feel trapped inside my own mind a lot of the time. It sometimes gives me the fear that if I do certain things it may lead to a crisis, which is something I wish I could avoid. But it’s a fear that other warriors and I deal with daily. It is difficult to have sickle cell disease, but I am a warrior, so I will always put up a good fight. I refuse to let this illness stop me. I have a lot more life to live and experience. So, I will forever be a sickle cell warrior, fighting any battle that this disease throws my way.
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