Invisible Illness
“You look fine, though.“
If I had a dollar for every time someone said that to me while I felt like I was dying on the inside, I would almost have enough money to pay my medical bills.
And the frustrating thing about invisible illness that nobody really talks about is that it’s not invisible because it isn’t there. It’s invisible because you can’t see it from the outside. And apparently, if you can’t see it, it doesn’t count.
I’ve shown up to doctor’s appointments barely able to function and been told my labs look great. I’ve described symptoms that were actively ruining my life and been handed a pamphlet about stress management. I’ve sat in waiting rooms feeling like my body was staging a full-scale revolt while the person next to me assumed I was there for a routine checkup. Because I looked fine.
The problem with looking fine is that everyone takes it as evidence. Evidence that you’re exaggerating. Evidence that it’s probably anxiety. Evidence that if you just ate better, slept more, stressed less, did yoga – you’d be totally okay.
I was not totally okay.
What nobody tells you is that being dismissed for years does something to you that goes way beyond the physical. It messes with your sense of reality. You start questioning yourself. Wondering if maybe they’re right. Maybe it IS just stress. Maybe you ARE being dramatic. That quiet erosion of your own self trust? That’s not anxiety. That’s what happens when the people who are supposed to help you keep telling you nothing is wrong while everything is wrong.
I’ve spent the better part of my life collecting diagnoses. And after a while you start to wonder if maybe the problem isn’t what’s wrong with you, it’s that nothing about what’s wrong with you is obvious enough for anyone to take seriously. I genuinely considered just showing up to my next appointment in a neck brace and an orthopedic boot just so someone would stop telling me I looked fine.
I’m Veronica Flare. And I am chronically sick of this sh*t.
But I’m still here. And I figured if I’m going to keep showing up anyway, I might as well tell my story. Because if there’s even one person out there who needed to hear that they’re not crazy, that what they’re experiencing is real, and that the system failing them is not their fault…
Then that’s enough reason to start talking.
So. Let’s talk.
