I am not the sick girl, so don’t pity me. Don’t sit there with a sad look in your eye while you watch me struggle through a spell. Don’t treat me differently because I have to see seven different specialists and am on ten different medications. Don’t think I can’t do the same things, and possibly more than you can , just because I have been dealt a unfortunate card in life.
I have been sick for five years. I have had to deal with memory problems, learning disabilities, fainting spells, extremely high blood pressure and not being able to feel my legs. I have to deal with a lot of stuff normal eighteen-year-old people don’t have to deal with, but that doesn’t mean I can’t do things. People have this tendency to pity me and feel bad for me because I have had to deal with a few more medical problems than the normal young adult. The biggest problem with that pity is that they start to believe I am incapable of doing things. They think I am weak and fragile and have to be taken care of. I don’t. I am strong and I am fighting this, and I am going to keep going until the day I die.
Chronic illness will turn you into a stronger person because you have two choices: to lay down and die, or to fight it. Personally, I choose to fight. I choose to wake up every day, put on a smile, and fight. I refuse to stop fighting ,even when people expect me to. I refuse to be a statistic. I refuse to let illness rule my life.
Don’t tell people behind my back that I am faking my symptoms. That is like calling me a liar, and that will hurt me more than you could imagine. I don’t need your negativity. I will not hesitate to cut you out of my life completely. To those of you who don’t believe it’s real, I’m sorry. I can’t convince you. I can’t show you I have memory loss. I can’t show you that I truly go through agony every day. All I can say is you must think I am a really good actor, because I would deserve a Grammy for a performance like this. I will never get a Grammy, because the side effects of chronic illness are a reality I face everyday. Having to be poked and prodded with needles, enduring scan after scan, being injected with so much radioactive material I probably glow in the dark -- I wouldn’t wish that on my worst enemy, so I would never go through it if I did not have to. I am sorry that you think I am a fake, but honestly I don’t care and will be better off without you in my life.
And to those of you facing chronic illness right now, please don’t give up. Please keep fighting. Please get up and make the choice to face the needle, the symptoms and the doubters. Try not to let people get you down and try not to get discouraged as you search for a diagnosis. You can do this. You can fight this. This will make you stronger than you could ever imagine.
