When People Don't Believe You're Chronically Ill

Do you have a problem with people that don’t believe you’re chronically ill? Do you think people assume you’re just lazy? Do you ever feel pressure to act or look a certain way so people will believe you’re sick?

Our healthy friends will never understand that we often fake being well but we don’t fake being sick. We may be at an activity one day with our hair done and make-up on while the next day or two may find us in bed unable to move. The fact that our friends don’t understand doesn’t make them bad or uncompassionate. It simply means they don’t get it and most people don’t get it unless they get it.

Recently a Facebook friend of mine posted a video of Dustin Hoffman talking about his experience while making the movie Tootsie. I don’t click on many celebrity links people post, so I’m not quite sure what prompted me to click on this one. Possibly a bit of boredom at the moment, but I’m very glad I did!

He mentioned that in order to take on the role of Tootsie, he wanted the makeup department to be able to transform him into a woman. Not just any woman, but one you could pass on the street without knowing it was a man in drag or even turning your head for a second look.

He felt they succeeded, but then Dustin asked them to go a step further and make him a beautiful woman. They chuckled and told him that was as good as they were going to get. This made a huge impact on him as he realized people would overlook him, and possibly not even give him the time of day, due to the fact that he didn’t meet the world’s standards of a beautiful human being. At that moment he realized there had been many interesting people he had come in contact with, but he had looked over, based purely on their appearance.

It was also around this time that I ran across this Youtube video of Lacey Buchanan as she tells the story of her son, Christian. I urge you to watch. I caution you to have Kleenex handy. This remarkable woman is raising a young boy that most people would have aborted. She is raising a child in a world where a visual first impression is sometimes all the further you’ll get in connecting with other people.

I find it very sad that our world seems to function on the basis of appearance.

But then there can be another side to this coin. This judgmental coin. The side where from the first glance someone seems to fit our opinion of “normal” or even “attractive”. Until you get to know them.

If you’ve read many of my posts you know I have a few chronic illnesses that are invisible. This leaves me with conditions that get a general response of “but you don’t look sick”. It leaves me often with a messy house, a list of chores to still be done, days spent in bed, days spent trudging through-trying to appear as if there isn’t any pain running through my body, days overwhelmed by depression, and days backing out of certain engagements.

The same reality is true for many others in our world with invisible illnesses. Whether those illnesses are mental or physical, they aren’t worn on the outside like a badge so easily recognizable. This leaves us with first impression judgments of “why can’t she keep her house clean”, “why is she overweight”, “why is she canceling our lunch date”, and “I don’t see any reason why she can’t………..”

#Invisibleillnesses aren't worn on the outside like a badge, easily recognizable.

I’ve really been burdened lately for people’s hearts. For their sense of acceptance. For who they are on the inside. For the daily load they carry of either their physical differences or their mental/emotional differences. Differences all based on our own ideas of what is normal and acceptable. It’s so sad that sometimes we don’t even measure up to our own line of acceptable standards.

I love Hillsong’s worship song Hosanna. My favorite verse of that song reads “ Heal my heart and make it clean, Open up my eyes to the things unseen. Show me how to love like You have loved me, Break my heart for what breaks Yours.”

The song is a prayer to God to break our hearts so we can see the pain in those around us. To heal us from the pride in our hearts that would make us think we are better than, or above, other people. To look past the obvious, at first glance, and look for what is in the heart of others.

We need to realize that God has an amazing love for people and He may just want to use us as a conduit to show His love toward them. And that, my friend, is something we can still do, despite our illness.

And what about ourselves? God also wants us to feel His love toward us. Our broken, flawed selves. All works in progress. All needing God’s love.

My prayer is that even today by a simple smile or gentle action and kind words we can show others they are loved!

Please click here to listen to this incredible song sung by Hope’s Call. (I just happen to know the singers! 😉 Allow it to speak to you, to know how much you are loved, and to, in turn, be able to show love to others! “You are loved with no conditions, you are loved with no remorse, the scars of your forgiveness are engraved upon the Lord, you are loved!”