I am nineteen years old, and I have fibromyalgia. I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia in December of 2019, in my freshman year of college, after a rapid onset of intense, unmanageable pain with no clear cause. Learning to live with chronic pain has been a struggle. I have had more doctor's appointments than I care to count and have paid for more prescriptions than I can remember. Being in college with this chronic pain disability has been challenging, and it's made me lean into my writing. Writing is something I can do even on my bad days, and my experiences open the doors to more diverse characters and experiences. One massive thing about this disability is the artistic potential behind it. Chronic pain is a never-ending, omnipresent demon that haunts my steps every day, and I have been able to use my affinity for writing to help me cope with it. Artistic mediums are critical, and between journaling and writing poetry, I have been able to process a lot of my pain and turn it into something beautiful. It has been an arduous journey, and I have almost ended up in the hospital several times in the last year. Still, each day I learn to live with it more and more, and I get a closer look into the difficulties of having a disability. Even though I was diagnosed at eighteen, this debilitating illness has gripped my life and made being a student and working to support myself independently so much more difficult. I wanted to be a doctor before I was diagnosed, and now that I cannot put the hours in, I have turned to English. While not my first choice of career, studying at the University of North Dakota has proven enlightening and a life-changing experience. I do not regret my choice of changing majors for even a second.