Zoe Chloe Douglas

The Mirror Inside: a Journey to Finding Answers to Ulcerative Colitis from Within Zoe Chloe Douglas

After growing up in East Germany under the rule of the Stasi, with a father who abused her mother, Zoe came to know her two ugly sisters, Fear and Grief, very well. She describes the country and her living situation during her childhood as emotionally, psychologically and physically oppressive and suppressive, two states of being that would later have significant impacts on her health. Years later after the Berlin Wall fell, she moved to the United States, determined to get a job, learn English and meet new people. But she was a product of the environment that she grew up in and ultimately surrounded herself with negative people and relationships. This culmination led to Zoe being diagnosed with Ulcerative Colitis (UC), a painful, chronic immune disease of the colon that affects nearly 500,000 Americans and forces its victims to live in constant fear of debilitating flair-ups and embarrassment. As every UC sufferer?s journey and situation are different, The Mirror Inside is not a step-by-step manual that reveals a magic formula of how to beat UC. Instead, it?s one 37-year-old woman?s exploration of her past to better understand her present and in turn, empower those living with UC and their friends and families to better understand and manage it in the hopes of achieving remission. She addresses issues like stress and toxic relationships, food, embracing spiritualism, building support structures, surgery, holistic alternatives and achieving remission to help others piece together their own recovery strategy to achieve a high quality of life.