This week is Invisible Illness week, and so I’ve been thinking about what it really means to have an invisible illness and chronic pain. While everyone’s experience is different, this is what invisible illness is to me:
Invisible illness is being pressured into doing things you’re too sick to do
Invisible illness is being told you just need to try harder
Invisible illness is being exhausted to the bone, and yet you are expected to carry on
Invisible illness is when people think you’re just a failure
Invisible illness means canceling plans when you really want to follow through
Invisible illness is giving everything you have to meet your obligations, and no one cares
Invisible illness is no one seeing how hard you try
Invisible illness is being told you’re just not good enough
Invisible illness is people second-guessing you every day
Invisible illness is people judging and labeling you
Invisible illness is when no one listens
Invisible illness is having to fake being well
Invisible illness is always falling short
Invisible illness is always having to prove you’re sick
Invisible illness is never being respected
Invisible illness is loneliness
Invisible illness is having to carry other’s expectations
Invisible illness is when no one hears you
Invisible illness can break you
Invisible illness is pain
Finally, invisible illness feels like clinging to the edge of the cliff with all your might as someone tries to force you off by stomping on your hand repeatedly.
Every day you feel like you’re doing the best you can, and it’s never enough. There’s always someone you’ve let down or someone who is angry you aren’t trying harder. This is why you have to let go of other people’s expectations. When you’re sick there is no way you can make everyone happy, so you have to learn to make yourself happy. Just remember that you’re stronger than you think. You never know how strong you are until something or someone pushes you off that cliff, and you find yourself hanging on as tight as you can with your fingertips.
I feel that I am a burden and embarrassment to my family. If I’m not doing for them then I’m sitting alone. They are off having fun, laughing, playing…….I’m sitting alone. They say they are tired or they have a headache or a crick in their neck or their back hurts from working hard, I sit alone thinking how much pain I suffer 24/7. But I still sit alone.