Nobody told me that someone with chronic illness could homestead. And honestly, when I picture the word “homesteader” I don’t picture someone with fibromyalgia, MS, and a body that has opinions about everything I ask it to do.
But here I am. Backyard chickens, a productive garden, jars of fermented vegetables, dried herbs hanging in my kitchen, and a pantry stocked with food I grew and preserved myself. In a city backyard. With a chronic illness. On the days my body allows it.
Backyard homesteading changed something in me. It gave me back a sense of agency that chronic illness had quietly stolen. The ability to grow something, tend something, preserve something — to contribute to my own household in a tangible, deeply satisfying way — that matters when so much of life with chronic illness feels out of your control.
This isn’t the kind of homesteading you see on rural Instagram accounts with rolling acreage and perfectly able bodies. This is small space, real life, paced around flare days and energy limits and the honest reality of doing what you can with what you have.
You don’t need land. You don’t need a healthy body. You need a little space, a willingness to start small, and the understanding that growing even one thing yourself is an act of cultivating an exceptional life.
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Can You Really Homestead with Chronic Illness? Here’s Why I Do
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About Cultivate an Exceptional Life
Cultivate an Exceptional Life is a chronic illness community for women who are done waiting for their hard season to be over before they start really living.
Here you'll find honest stories, practical tools, and hard-won wisdom for building a life you love — alongside your illness, not in spite of waiting for it to get better.
Because an exceptional life doesn't just happen. It has to be cultivated.
Meet Leisa Watkins
Leisa is a chronic illness writer and advocate living with MS, fibromyalgia, Lyme disease, and CFS/ME, and a mom navigating her kids' chronic illness journeys alongside her own.
She writes from lived experience and years of research, sharing practical strategies and compassionate guidance for women building a full life alongside chronic illness.
Not a medical professional. Please consult your healthcare provider for medical advice.