Jessica Woodville | Memoir & Musings

It’s been two weeks since my official diagnosis: Addison’s disease.

A name, at last, for the thing that’s been slowly eroding my life for the better part of six years.

I should feel relieved, right?

Relieved to finally be seen. To have the truth confirmed after years of gaslighting, guessing, and holding my life together with duct tape and sheer will.

But mostly, I feel hollow. Grief-struck. And so very, very alone.

This illness didn’t arrive overnight. It crept in slowly—like water under the floorboards—until one day, everything buckled. At first it was just fatigue, dizziness, nausea I couldn’t explain. Then came the ER visits. The dismissal. The “maybe it’s just anxiety” shrugs from people who never once read my full chart.

Four years ago, I was given a working diagnosis.

Two months ago, I was hospitalized.

They denied me my life-saving meds.

And I haven’t been the same since.

Since May, I’ve been mostly bedridden. I’ve lost even more of the little freedom I had left. My strength is gone. My trust is shattered. And my identity—mother, writer, friend—feels like it’s slipping away, piece by piece, like fog off a mirror.

I try to parent through it. I try to smile through the guilt when I can’t go to the park, when I have to cancel plans, when I see the disappointment flash in my daughters’ eyes before they say, “It’s okay, Mama. We understand.” But I don’t understand. I don’t understand how I got here. I don’t understand why this system is so broken. And I don’t understand how I’m supposed to find the light when the tunnel keeps getting longer.

No one prepares you for this kind of loneliness.

The kind where your own body becomes your prison.

Where friends disappear because they don’t know what to say.

Where doctors reduce you to symptoms and forget there’s a whole person inside this story.

I miss who I was.

I miss who I thought I’d become.

And some days, I’m terrified that person is gone for good.

But I keep writing.

Because writing is how I scream when I’ve lost my voice.

It’s how I remember I still exist—even when I feel invisible.

And maybe, just maybe, someone else out there feels the same.

Maybe you’re reading this right now and nodding along.

Maybe you, too, are stuck inside a body that doesn’t play by the rules.

Maybe you’re tired of being the “strong one” when all you want is softness.

If that’s you, I see you.

I am you.

And maybe we’re not as alone as we feel.

I don’t have a neat ending for this post. No silver lining. No miraculous recovery.

Just the truth, raw and unsanitized:

This is hard.

This is heavy.

And I’m still here.