I'm celiac... I was diagnosed 5 years ago. It was an incredibly difficult transition for me to lose access to so many of my favourite foods. It changes everything. It changes how you relate to food, your friends, society. Eating out gets a lot more difficult because of cross-contamination. In my first couple of years I was in strong denial and I would cheat all the time. I would also tell myself that it was OK if there were traces of gluten so I didn't have to embarrass myself by always asking if things were cooked in separate fryers and cutting boards. I hated being "that guy" that waiters had to deal with.
But... the more you cheat, the worse it gets. I eventually developed enough small bowel scarring from all the gluten traces that I now have difficulty digesting other kinds of food. I eventually lost the ability to do dairy, raw vegetables, and meals with complex ingredients. The celiac disease will do long-term silent damage the more you resist it.
What ended up making me feel so much better was connecting with online communities and watching a lot of youtube cooking channels. If you don't like cooking at home I highly recommend you start getting to like it because it's really the only way to ensure food safety. But that fact aside, I find now that I prefer my home meals. Restaurant food has so many additives and crap. You get to see it more and more as you eat more purely on your own.
Gluten free alternatives are everywhere now, but I don't rely on them too much. A lot of the pre-packaged gluten free foods (like the bread) are incredibly loaded with sugar. So you're trading gluten for sweet. The exceptions are the pastas. Gluten free pasta has become really reliable. I have found versions that are indistinguishable from regular pasta so I've recaptured a lot of enjoyment.
The difficult part is baking and recipes that call for kneaded dough. With GF flour you always need to work in combos of different flours, and they often don't work very well. I tried making potstickers the other night and they totally fell apart in the pan. So yeah... prepare yourself for some depressing failures. But on the other hand, once you get good at certain things, you'll always have them.
The best encouragement you can give yourself is to find 4-5 recipes that taste REALLY GOOD, that are simple, and that you can make whenever you want. Once you have a basic meal rotation, you can start branching out and building confidence with new foods. Yes, it's more time consuming, but unfortunately there's not much choice. I was super depressed in my first couple of years because I put in little effort to learn about GF recipes, so I was constantly mourning what I couldn't have. Then I met some other celiac people who cooked for me and I was like wow! I feel like I just ate like a normal person again!
There's one more hitch. The longer you avoid gluten, the more intense your reaction to it will be if you get exposed. Your body starts to back down from being stressed out the longer you're away from it, so if you get exposed it totally freaks out. In my first two years when I cheated a lot, it would give me diarrhea and bloating but nothing to write home about. After years of avoidance, now if I suffer exposure, I lose the ability to digest ALL FOOD for up to 2-3 weeks and I suffer significant weight loss. Usually the first week of a celiac attack involves a lot of time in bed or resting. It really sucks. The #1 thing you need to protect yourself from are ignorant people. Some will try to make decisions for you like, "Oh, it can't be that bad. A few crumbs won't matter." I once had a celiac attack because a friend cooked my GF meal in the same oil as his wheat meal, thinking it didn't matter because my meal was GF. He did it out of pure laziness. I was furious.
Restaurants will also cut corners or they just won't care. If they say something is GF, you have to ask them what that means. If they're just following a trend, it may simply mean that they made food without gluten, but the food could've still been prepared and stored on the same surfaces as their gluten food without any concern for contamination. You always have to ask. It sucks, I know... but you can't afford to slip. Nobody is going to look out for you, it's your job. If it's fried food, do they have a separate dedicated fryer with clean oil for their GF customers? Are cutting and prep surfaces divided between GF and non-GF? If staff are preparing meals, are they jumping from GF and non-GF prep without washing their hands or changing their gloves?
I'm lucky because I live on the west coast of North America where GF is trendy and even non-celiac people demand proper food prep... so a lot of restaurants make sure they follow protocol. One bad review and it could tank their business. That said, I have seen MANY, MANY "gluten free" places doing things that put celiac people at risk. You must be eternally vigilant!
The immediate sign that I've been glutened is that I get brain fog, low energy, cognitive dysfunction and depression. It happens literally within a half hour. That's when I realize, oh shit, houston we have a problem. 1-2 later days my small bowel lining sheds and the diarrhea starts. Usually the first thing to stop being absorbed is fat, followed by sugar. Protein becomes the only viable alternative.
So you really need to avoid gluten. It really sucks, I know... I feel your pain. I miss the days when I would grab a piece of cheap pizza on the way home from school. However it's a lifestyle you can totally navigate and we are so lucky in the year 2018 with the options that are available to us. I met a woman who has been celiac for 45 years. When she was a kid her parents had to import special ingredients and she lived a very isolated life. It also helps that GF is trendy now. I hate the trend in some ways but in others it's spreading the word.
Wheat in North America is incredibly toxic now and it's causing non-celiac gluten intolerance in staggering numbers every year now. With that comes demand for alternatives and that's really going to help us celiacs. That said, we will never be able to escape having to do home made. I went to a GF convention in January and aside from some really great hummus, I walked away with no other products. Packaged crap is still packaged crap.
OK... sorry to write a book. I'm just aware that BL doesn't have a lot on this subject, and my energy is pretty good today so I thought I'd say all I can. Good luck and don't give up hope! It's totally possible to live well and satisfied with celiac disease!