Do you meditate? Have you tried whole 30? Would you consider talking to a psychic about it?

These are just a few of the suggestions Michelle Riel was offered as she managed chronic pain and an autoimmune disease.

Those musings, along with thoughts on cultural imposter syndrome, the grief of losing someone we love, are part of Michelle's latest book.

Maybe This Will Help, how to feel better when things

stay the same, told partly in prose and is only Michelle, a mega talented designer and

illustrator can do through hilarious and heartbreaking charts.

Michelle, you open your book by writing, I'm the absolute first person to tell you to go to the doctor if you have any type of body pain. How did you become that person?

Chronic pain does that to you. If you have no idea that if you have an injury and like you just

don't do anything about it, it might just stay with you forever. I had no idea. And so the thing is I went to a

yoga class and I was yoga beginner and this was people who have been doing it a long time. And I just

was like, oh,

this is what yoga is. And so I tried to do a headstand and the teacher lifted me into it.

And then I just feel like I just blacked out. Like nothing happened. I just remember thinking like,

okay, that's enough. And then 24 hours later, I just couldn't move. And then after that,

I just had so much work to do that I couldn't address it.

I just working with a heating pad on.

And I didn't have good insurance at the time because it was full-time freelance.

I was doing groupons for healthcare.

So I kind of had no idea what I was doing.

And then it just didn't go away. The pain just didn't go away. And how long did it take you to actually get a diagnosis?

I got all kinds of diagnoses, I guess you would say. I got a diagnosis at a physical therapy

place. They said it was just a trap strain. And like looking back, I think they had me doing the

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