Living with IBD is like having to smell the neighbor's tar all the time. Sure it's annoying, but it shouldn't keep you from enjoying your surroundings. I think my attitude is pretty healthy. Norman Vincent Peale was on to something. Mind over matter has its merits.
Trouble is, it's sometimes hard to get the right focus and often too darn easy to lose it.
However, we all have our respective ways of dealing with IBD, and most of us get better at it all the time. I like to refer to coping as a learned science. It takes some trial and error. If you're like me, you handle matters a lot better now than you did then. I was sick for a long time before they properly concluded I had Crohn's disease.