"You don't look sick."

I can't tell you how many times I've heard those four words strung together in the midst of an ignorant conversation. While it is an absolute blessing to be able to present myself the way that I'd like people to perceive me, my outer image creates a false depiction of the ugly I have encountered inside. I don't "look" sick because I have the ability to paint my face with makeup and drape my body with whatever I see fit. I have chosen to embrace life because I am lucky enough to do so. I don't "look" to be sick because my disability is internal and not external.

Those four words are not a compliment because I am sick.

But I am more than that.

I am more than a label. I am more than beauty. I am more than my disability.

It's not a compliment because those four words discredit the daily struggles I face inside. I am covering what you can't see. I am shielding you from the harsh reality. I'm protecting you from the truth. The truth is that I've faced many dark days. I've spent more mornings throwing up than I ever wish to count. I've heard sounds or inhaled smells that have shocked my body with horror. I've left classrooms with my heart racing and my body soaked with sweat. I've woken up from an unconscious state in places foreign to me. I've spent nights, weeks, months in hospital beds. My tired body has been pricked with needles, injected with shots, put through tests, and filled with fluids and medications through an IV. But you don't see that.

You wouldn't think I was quite so pretty if you saw my bruises and my knotted hair. Or after my skin is flushed red and my eyes are swollen shut from crying. I'm not pretty laying in a hospital bed with metal disks and thin wires attached to my head. You wouldn't find it pretty to hear me vomiting as soon as I wake. You would call me sick. Disabled. And you would be correct. This struggle that I win every day makes me much more beautiful than any physical appearance of "perfection."

But still I am not sick enough because you don't see that. Would I be sick enough if I lost the ability to speak? To walk? To write? To not wash my hair or clean my skin? Would I be sick enough if you saw me screaming with a five-inch needle in my back? Am I sick enough when I've lost my memory? When I wake out of unconsciousness in a hospital bed, am I sick enough then? Am I sick enough when my heart rate is over 130 beats per minute at a resting state? Am I sick enough when my hands shake and my brain feels like it has caught fire? Would I be sick enough if my vision went white in the middle of a lecture and I was incapable of walking to the exit in a straight line? Because I've been to all of those places.

But I continue to wipe my tears. I fight every day.

I fight because I am proud of who I am. I fight for the best future I can obtain. I fight to disprove the stigma that society has created against those living with a disability. I fight to prove that I am deserving of an education. I fight because I am passionate about so many things in this beautiful world. I fight to make my parents proud of the determined child they've raised. I fight because I am alive. I am happy. I am hopeful. I am lucky. I am thankful. I fight because having a disability doesn't make me love makeup and clothes any less. I fight because I deserve to live this life that I was given.

I am winning this fight.

To whoever has come across this article, know that you are more than a diagnosis or a label or a disability. It is not the end of you. Do not accept defeat. You have nothing to be ashamed of. Your bad days make you more beautiful. It's okay to cry and to be angry and to feel lost. But you are not alone. You are not tainted or less. Be proud of all that you are and will be. You do not have to accept the limitations set for you. Know that you can always be more. You were given this battle because you have the fight within yourself. Embrace it because this is your life. Go live it.