Im in love with someone with Crohn's disease

[lavendel-dk]

Hi there. Im new in here, and pardon me if its long and with indifferent details, and a lot of grammatical errors (English is not my native language).
But here we go:

So in January at my college we had new students at my class, and right from the moment i layed my eyes at one of the new guys, i knew it was love of first sight. We started hanging out at school and after asking for what he had bern doing before he came to our college,
He told me he had been very ill of that bowel disease.

Because he didnt reacted at my flirting, i decided to tell him about my feelings for him. He said to me he couldnt handle a relationship because of his illness. But it was nothing about me. He comforted me and so on.

While the months were running we became even closer friends. And im not sure if he likes me as a friend or more, but thats another story.
He keeps it very close to himself, but he has told me that his illness is Crohns disease, and now i understand a bit more why he doesnt want a girlfriend.

I have some illness too. I have depression and anxiety. Two weeks ago i got an anxiety attack in school, at the same time he became ill of crohns, but he ignored his own things, and supported me 100%.

The next day i felt better, but he didnt. And it was very hard to see how much he suffered, and i wouldnt able to help him, like he did to me. The only thing i could was to say that i though he should stay home if he needed it. So he did.

Now its two weeks ago and im very worried about him. I texted him at Monday how he felt, and he answered he didnt felt well, but though of coming Tuesday. But he didnt. And neither the last three days.

I dont know what to do. I really wish i could cure him. I love him so much

 

[nogutsnoglory]

It's great that you can be a supportive friend. Sometimes romantic relationships are meant to be and other times you may just make an amazing lifelong friend. I can understand your concern but from personal experience I sometimes get calls/texts/emails and I'm in too much pain or weak and don't reply for hours or days. I know my friends can't understand this and just think I'm ignoring them but I really am not. 2 weeks though is really long so hopefully he is ok and not hospitalized or anything without phone access.

 

[Justanothercp]

Crohns is difficult, to say the least. Be a good friend, listen. And accept that he made need a lot of space. Time will tell where it leads to.

 

[Johnnysmom]

I don't have crohn's disease, my son does, and I find a lot of the time he just doesn't want to talk about it. He really looks for areas that are an escape for him.

I would let your friend take the lead and if he wants to talk about it, he will appreciate you being there to listen. But if he might need a break and wants people to be interested in other parts of who he is.

I could be off, I don't have crohn's so I don't know what it feels like. I have just noticed that my son needs some space sometimes.

 

[alex_chris]

I have had Crohn's from age 18 onwards. I had only a few relationships since then, but I do not think it is because of the Crohn's, I have been living in several countries since then and haven't been in the same town for more than 2 years since I was 22.

Anyway, I am in a relationship right now and have to say the Crohn's is the least of our problems... it's more my job and that she is rather different than me which means we hardly ever agree on anything that we want to do, which is quite tiresome.

I don't think you can help him with Crohn's. If he has serious problems right now it's another matter, but if he manages it well, a good relationship can help a lot. Only if it means that he gets into a lot of stress in addition to is current activities would he have a problem. I've to say, my relationship right now is such a thing, you can get into Crohn's trouble if you sleep oly 4-5 hours a day for many days.

Anyway, it seems he can't manage Crohn's right now. One thing you could do is ask him if he really knows everything about the disease and if he is e.g. a member of this or another forum. The first thing to do is get all the information you can, the second is to get the best meds that work for you and the third is to do all kinds of other Crohn's management things (supplements, sport, stress relief, a positive attitude to life).