Friendly reminder that:
- Young people can have arthritis too.
- There are hundreds of life long conditions and diseases out there that are typically diagnosed between 12 and 30.
- There is a vast difference between being tired and having chronic fatigue.
- Just because you can’t tell that someone is unwell from looking at them, doesn’t mean that you should assume that they are ok.
- Many chronic illnesses are life long, and incurable. Many of them are potentially fatal.
- If you have a disease like Lupus, on good days you still feel like you have a bad flu, 24/7.
- Many of the medications used to treat chronic conditions have side effects that can really affect someone’s self esteem - like extreme weight gain, skin changes and hair loss.
- Most chronic illnesses have very little awareness - its unlikely that you’ve heard of Sjogren’s Syndrome, Scleroderma, Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome or Fibromyalgia.
- However these diseases can cause symptoms as varied as joint pain, fatigue, constant nausea, kidney failure, pneumonia, photo sensitivity, full body rashes, paralysis, strokes etc.
- So please remember that invisible illnesses exist too :)
Do not mistake composure for ease.
No one should need to have - or be on the verge of - a breakdown for you to take them and their needs seriously.
my osteoarthritis started showing symptoms when i was fourteen years old. i had to quit the soccer team because i grew bone spurs on the inside of my kneecaps. so that was fun! you’re not “too young to be sick,” that’s just-world-fallacy bullshit.
related: don’t assume someone who uses a wheelchair is ‘faking’ if you see them stand or walk. most wheelchair users aren’t paralyzed. most likely they can stand, walk, even run in an emergency, but it hurts like a bastard and can lay them out for days afterwards.
nobody owes you a performance of a stereotyped disability token. if you are abled, it is on you to accomodate us, not the other way around.
thank you for reading, and for taking a moment to absorb the information. <3
