I have Rheumatoid Arthritis. I may be broken but I am not invisible. I may not look how I once did but I am still the person I have always been. I may be different in many ways but that doesn’t change who I am. I am still the person I was before Rheumatoid Arthritis entered my life. Yes, I have changed in many ways but look at me, see who I still am!

I have a disease that may have altered many things about me. Maybe my hands, my feet, my weight, my walk or even down to my attitude. I may not be able to do as much as I once could or even as often as I once could. You may not see me smile as much and I may cry a lot more. I may frown more than you like or even more than I like myself but that’s life with Rheumatoid Arthritis. You see RA changes the body and mind in ways that many would never imagine but it does not erase me, I’m still here.

You see we may even look normal in many ways but that can be deceiving. That is the trick with RA, you don’t always look exactly how you feel. What many don’t know, this disease changes a lot about you that the eyes don’t see. It makes you tired, weak, weary, rage in pain and it can leave you so lonely even as you smile. Those things hang onto us in a jarring way that sometimes can be a burden that’s really hard to bear and go unseen. But underneath all of that, we are still the person we were from the start of this journey even with the suffering we’re enduring.

See who we are even through the pain, fatigue, agony, loneliness and depression that we face. The very things that have an enormous impact on our lives but never changes our core being. We may not be who others want us to be when they feel we should be but we are still ourselves, just a person saddled with Rheumatoid Arthritis. I am still me, I always will be though broken at times, still me…

Be Blessed!