Thank you for sharing your story of growth in self-love! In finding the locus of power within me to affect how my time alive would be spent, I found my happiness. The product of a religious childhood that taught the fallacy of predestination, I found myself excusing errors in actions and judgement of myself and others because "it was part of the plan". I was creating my own hardships that led to anxiety and depression; I can't imagine the amount of frustration when these conditions occur over a chance infection of a disease.

As a healthcare provider, I feel that the mental toll of managing chronic diseases is often overlooked and as a clinician that specializes in neuroscience, the impact of mental illness like anxiety and depression on daily functioning, and therefore quality of life and prognosis, is enormous. I do my best to help connect communities of patients to a support communities and with technology, this has become much easier and I feel the severity of isolation reported has decreased because of it. Thank you on behalf of all of the people that you have helped and will help with your writing!