When you see me, my fingers straight, I don’t limp, I don’t have the assistance of a cane nor am I in a wheel chair, so tell me what do you think. Do I look perfectly normal to you! Do I look as if I can do what any normal person should be able to do! Well I can’t, you see my disease may be invisible but what I’m going through is real and just because you don’t see it doesn’t make it untrue. Yes I may look healthy but I am truly suffering because you see my disease Rheumatoid Arthritis can’t be clearly seen.
Sure many times we’ve been thought to be pretenders or complainers simply because we do not look sick but in reality we are fighting a hard fight with a life long chronic disease. That’s the tricky thing about our disease Rheumatoid Arthritis, it can hide itself within, fooling those around us while tearing us apart right in front of them. We suffer in silence so much of the time because we feel we don’t have the visible proof to back up the many problems that we face. But God knows every waking day there is the all too real pain cruising through our bodies reminding us that we are sick and it doesn’t matter how well we may look. We are suffering from what they can’t see which makes believing us difficult and that is not how it should be for anyone who is sick. Because they don’t see our pain, they don’t believe our pain. They do not see the emotional scars, maybe our swollen joints or how debilitating it can be all while being invisible, yet ravishing us just the same.
We know it can be easier when there are visible signs. There will be no second guesses about your problems which offers the understanding and support that should be given. But why do we have to be broken to be believed. We are hurting inward and outward trying our best to come to terms with what this disease has thrust upon us while trying to fit into a world where we’re judged by the lack of visibility. You see people may not see how hard it is for some of us to tie our shoes, open a jar, walk very far, stand for long periods of time, sleep at night or drag ourselves out of bed in the morning as we look as normal as normal is perceived to be. They don’t even see how much our medication makes us want to throw up time and time again, how it completely drains us and above all how it makes our minds race with worry each time we engage with it because we are concerned about what it maybe doing to us. Yet we may be looking just fine but suffering as we struggle for strength to go on while others are missing all of this.
It is so sad how much we go through and how it is misjudged by others. They don’t realize when we look fatigued, it’s not because we stayed out late, it’s because we are exhausted since sleep has eluded us because of pain, stress, depression and worry. Those tired eyes aren’t from partying too much or even staying up while having fun, it’s because of the tears we shed out of frustration, hurt and the pain that won’t leave us. It is true we may smile or even say we’re okay but that’s because we are forever trying to explain our disease which is often brushed off as a simple thing, never finding its true understanding. To explain and to be told “Oh that old disease, almost everyone has it” lets us know there is no better way of explaining it. To them it is just an ailment, something for us to get over or just deal with. Feeling Worse Than We Look Should Be Our Motto because we are never without the symptoms of this disease.
What we want everyone to know, Rheumatoid Arthritis can be a disease that you may not see because it is an auto immune disease but if people look closer and clearer they will see it all right there in our eyes, the agony of our night before and our day to come. They must realize, there are some of us this disease crushes, some it hammers and some it beats but all of us have the same disease and we are all suffering. Our lives is a fight each and every day whether big or bigger. So we say, “Because Our Disease Is Invisible Does It Make Our Suffering and Us Invisible. To those with visible signs, my hope is that you are getting all of the understanding and support you deserve without the unnecessary misunderstanding.
Rheumatoid Arthritis, is an auto immune disease that can strike anyone, that strikes many and doesn’t discriminate. It has already attacked us who needs your love, understanding and support, things that medication can’t give us. We are not invisible and neither is our suffering. Rheumatoid Arthritis is Real!
Be Blessed.
photo credit: barbaralane/pixabay.com
RA AND THE FAMILY FIT 
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