The woman at the kitchen table

I'd been feeling strange for a while before anyone gave it a name — tired in that specific, leaden way, stiff in the mornings, the kind of ache that isn't really an ache until, one day, it is. When the diagnosis finally came, it was rheumatoid arthritis. That was back in 2017, and I still learn new things about my body all the time.

The hardest part early on wasn't the pain. It was that nobody could see it. On a good day my illness is invisible; on a bad day it's a nuisance to everyone around me. I used to joke that I'd carry a laminated copy of my medical records, ready for every time someone said, “But you don't look sick.” I'm still not sure what sick is supposed to look like. Apparently, not me.

On a good day my illness is invisible. On a bad day, it's a nuisance to everyone around me. On living with an invisible illness

As a Forensic Psychologist, I thought I knew a thing or two about human behaviour—until I developed a chronic illness and discovered that none of my professional training had covered the most important lesson of all: how to be the patient in the room. It took me a long time, and a very patient therapist, to learn the thing that changed everything: you are allowed to ask questions, and you are allowed to disagree. When I'd say “why me?”, she'd answer, “why not me?” It made me furious. Then it made sense.

You are the only person who really knows how your body works. A diagnosis doesn't hand that knowledge to your doctor. So I learned to keep notes, to ask for second opinions, and to stand up — politely, but out loud — for the version of care that let me keep my life.

And you don't have to do it alone. Early on I found the “Spoon Theory” — the idea that you start each day with a finite number of spoons of energy, and you get to choose how to spend them. It gave me a way to explain the hard days, and a whole community with it: ask a fellow “spoonie” how many spoons they've got left, and you'll nearly always get an answer and a smile.

You are the only person who understands how your body works. Chapter two

Everyone with a chronic illness has heard the question: “Have you tried changing your diet?” Usually followed by a story about someone who cured themselves with turmeric and warm water. For a long time it just made me feel worse — like I was failing for still keeping an emergency Snickers in the back of the cupboard.

But over the years I did find that an anti-inflammatory approach, and learning which foods my own body was fighting, genuinely helped. That became the elimination-diet guide I sell now. The single most important thing I can tell you, though, is this: what worked for me won't necessarily work for you. There is no one-size-fits-all. It's a tool for noticing, not a cure.

What worked for me won't be what works for you. There is no one-size-fits-all. On the elimination diet

I'm fiercely independent and allergic to asking for help, which is a terrible combination when your body needs help. When my family immigrated from Africa, I quietly decided that the only way to prove I belonged was to need no one. At school and university, I never asked for extensions, support or favours. I worked harder, took on more, and wore self-reliance like a badge of honour, even when it came at the expense of my own health. It took years to realise that asking for help didn't make me less capable—it simply meant I no longer had to carry the weight alone.

Motherhood added another layer. I have two children and a husband who, after years of this, knows to ask me on the morning of an event how I'm feeling and whether I still feel up to it. I've stopped apologising for the days I can't do everything. Prioritising how I feel is, genuinely, my most important goal each day.

Prioritising how I feel is my most important goal each day. On staying independent

When I was first diagnosed, the book I wanted to read didn't exist — the one that told me which questions to ask, how to talk to work, how to not lose myself to the diagnosis. So I wrote it. It isn't medical advice, and it isn't tough love. It's the honest version, with a bit of humour, laid out so the next person who gets the news has something to open.

If there's a single thread running through all of it, it's this: it's okay to be kind to yourself. And whatever you're facing, you are not alone in it.

I wrote the handbook I wished someone had handed me. On the point of the whole thing

— Anita