The Face of Chronic Illness

What does chronic illness look like? 

Does it have a face? 

Does it have a sound?

Do you think you can tell from a person's appearance whether or not they are sick? Do you think you can tell from the sound of their voice?

Our society has so many assumptions about what it means to be sick. There are friends who will call on the phone and at the sound of my chipper voice will be convinced that I'm well. There are acquaintances who hear of my illness journey and confidently exclaim that I don't look sick so I must not be. There are doctors who say I must not be all that unwell because I'm sitting in front of them smiling and laughing.

These assumptions hurt. They hurt me deeply and profoundly. They lack elements of compassion and understanding. They tend to make me feel misunderstood at best, not believed at worst. 

Often, I sound chipper on the phone because I'm happy to be hearing from the person who called. Hearing from someone I love, who wants to tell me their stories, it gives me joy. I might be feeling horrible that day or I might not. But because I sound upbeat, it's likely the person on the other end will assume I'm doing great.

Often, I'm laughing at the doctor's office because it's been 5 years and this whole ordeal has been completely ridiculous and absurd and more than likely, I was just told, again, that everything is normal and my chosen coping method is to laugh. But because of my laughter, my smile, I'm not taken seriously. The severity of my experience is undermined and I'm told "you seem like you are doing fine" or "you clearly aren't that sick."

Never mind that I'm smiling because over the past 5 years I've come to understand that my happiness is one of the only things I actually have control over. And with that knowledge, I am actively choosing to be a source of light. I am actively choosing to show up at my doctor's appointments with the intent to be a blessing in their life. I am actively choosing not to let this thing beat my emotions into the ground (too often) and to rise back up when it does. I am actively choosing to continue to hope even when it seems that all hope has been lost. 

I am actively choosing to smile and to laugh as often as possible.

Why should that make me less convincingly sick?

                                      ~

This is what Chronic Invisible Illness looks like:

But so is this: