As you’ve chosen to read this the chances are you, or someone you know, is living with a chronic illness or life altering injury; maybe this condition is invisible some of the time, and perhaps it has meant that you or they have had to make many alterations to your lifestyle, work, and general day to day living – and that is fine, in fact it’s awesome that you are making these changes and carrying on!
How are you viewed now you’ve made this change? Or how do you now view the person who has made the changes?
I ask because its definitely evident that some people in my life, close and otherwise, have trouble understanding the changes I have made, and that my invisible illnesses are still right here and causing many issues, because my symptoms are largely unseen…
I will be honest it gets my back up a bit, and maybe rightly so. This is my story so I should be given space to tell it, it’s best from the horses mouth, right?
Having to live with an invisible illness can be challenging for me, and I’m sure for everyone who else who is living with one, as well as those close to us and others looking in. Sometimes we can look perfectly normal, but say you are currently not working or maybe you work part-time, because this is what is best for you and your current health – what do people think or say? It frustrates me so much that people only see what they want to, as I say of late it would appear I’ve been viewed in this way; because I look fine, it’s now a given that I should be working full time. People seem to miss the under skin issues, ranging from pain and fatigue to psychological issues preventing me from functioning as I’d like.
It has clearly shown me that we still have such a long way to go to educate people on living with an invisible illness or condition. You don’t know what it’s like till it happens to you – that is such a great way of looking at it. Somehow we need people to understand this and how difficult day to day life can be, and because of this we may not have the normal 9-5 job; it might take us longer in the morning to get going, in fact from the outside our lifestyle may even look like one of leisure, when really it’s bloody hard work.
All I ask is that people can accept us for doing our best to continue living our lives the best we can, and just because it doesn’t look like the ‘norm’ doesn’t mean we’re any less important or we’re doing any less, we’ve merely adapted our life’s to live the best we can.
I know that I have had a bit of an angry rant here, something I’m not very good at, but I wanted to get it off my chest, and its important to continue to raise awareness of invisible illness, mental illness, and the stigmas and bad attitudes that surround them, and focus on changing that!
If you’d like to share your story to help others understand our day to day life feel free to email me.
