If there's anything that's really annoying when you're chronically ill, but have no visible signs of illness, it's when you're telling someone that you don't feel that great because of whatever chronic illness you have, and their response is "Well, you don't look sick,".

Well right, I know I don't look sick, but that doesn't dismiss the way that I feel. You wouldn't say this to to a cancer patient, regardless of how they look, so why are you saying it to people with Lupus, Multiple Sclerosis, Fibromyalgia, or any of the other chronic illness that fall under the category of invisible illness?

Trust me when I say, there are a lot of other invisible illnesses, no two ever looking the same. Some of them, even cloak themselves as another. Which makes knowing what's causing you to feel how you feel one day, even worse. I know for myself, I can almost never distinguish when the pain is caused by my Fibromyalgia or by my Endometriosis. It's an entire guessing game when you have a chronic illness, or for someone like me, multiple. You telling me I don't look sick, doesn't make me feel any better. It doesn't magically make my illness disappear.

This is the same with when you tell me "I'm too young to have so many problems," illness does not discriminate, regardless of your age, your sex, your race, or your socioeconomic class. Just because you think I'm too young to be sick, or I don't look sick, doesn't make my illness invalid. If you genuinely believe that I'm not sick because of my age, or my outward appearance, I welcome you to live a day in my life. Please, sit through the doctors appointments, lay in bed all day because even with pain medication you still can't bring yourself to do anything, and deal with the psychological aspect of it too.

I can honestly say that, I would never wish some of the things I have to deal with on a daily basis on my worst enemy. I would never want someone else to experience the driving an hour or more away for a doctors appointment, or laying in bed all day because the pain is too much to even think about leaving.

There's a great break down of what it's like to live with a chronic illness that drains everything out of you called "The Spoon Theory," in short, every day you start with a certain number of spoons. How many you have will all depend on what you did the day before, and how well you're feeling when you wake up. Now every activity you do will take away spoons, and at the end of the day, if you have spoons left over, great, but many of us don't. When you have none left, you either push through, and make yourself worse, or you rest until you have more.

If you take anything out of this, let it be these few things;

Illness doesn't discriminate.

Just because I don't look sick, doesn't mean that I'm not.

If you really feel the need to say something about me, and my invisible illnesses, that's anything but encouraging, don't.