I recently read a wonderful article written by a woman with a chronic illness in which she expressed why she would not apologize for having fun. Her words resonated with me because for the past five years I’ve struggled with allowing myself to have fun without judgment.
It’s incredibly frustrating to have an invisible illness strapped on your back all day every day. There is no relief. Sometimes the weight of it is crushing. No one else around you can see the pain you’re carrying on your shoulders because you don’t look sick. If you had your leg in a cast, arm in a sling or green mucus gushing from your nose, it’d be easy. Everyone can see the thing that’s hurting, and they sympathize with what they can see.
We, on the other hand, are more difficult to understand. Even after explanation, we get the judgmental and questioning looks. At times, we’re even accused of faking our illness and we feel compelled to apologize for our condition.
In all honesty, why do we constantly feel the need to apologize or over-explain our state of health? It should be enough to state “I have a chronic/invisible illness” and move on with our lives. We have little control over how our bodies feel day to day. It’s stressful enough living in our skin 24/7 so why are we just adding more guilt and frustration to our already frustrating situation?
I went to the gym with a good friend the other day because I really felt like I could start doing more exercise. He tried to show me various weight lifting exercises, and I kept failing. My wrists and elbows were too weak to hold the weights let alone bend the joints appropriately. He told me to straighten out my arm, and it was as straight as it could go. I felt embarrassed and insecure because I couldn’t do even the simplest of workouts, and every time I couldn’t do something I immediately said “I’m sorry, it’s just my joints…” He probably saw I was getting more and more frustrated with myself because I saw myself as a failure and I felt that I had to apologize for my shortcomings. He said, “It’s cool. I understand. We’ll just find something that you’re good at and stick with that.”
That simple reassurance made me realize that, sure there are things I won’t be able to do for awhile, but I can find something that works for me. More importantly, I realized how silly it sounded to apologize for something I had no control over. I can’t control the fact that I have arthritis. I shouldn’t apologize for it.
I try to make sense of why we are compelled to apologize for our illnesses. Maybe it’s the lack of validation and support from our fellow man. Perhaps we feel a need to apologize because we are somehow an inconvenience or our invisible pain is invalid. We shouldn’t apologize and others shouldn’t make us feel like we have to.
The author of the article went on to say she felt the need to apologize for having fun despite her illness because others made her feel like she was a fraud. Because she was having fun in her life, that somehow meant she wasn’t sick. She was “faking” her illness because she tries to have joy in her life. It hurts me that we are accused of faking our pain because we don’t act miserable all of the time.
It’s a no-win situation. Either we talk constantly of our daily pain and apologize for “complaining” nonstop or we try to make the best of a bad (and lifelong) situation by having fun every once in awhile and have to apologize for not acting sick.
To my fellow chronic/invisible illness warriors, you do not need to apologize for a disease you never asked for nor one you can control. You do not need to apologize for feeling ill and explaining your pain to others. You do not need to apologize for the things you cannot do. You do not need to apologize for making the best of your situation by having some fun.
We can’t walk around being sick and miserable all the time. We’re allowed to go out and live our lives. I won’t be apologizing for my arthritis. I never asked to have this disease for the rest of my life, and I won’t apologize for living my life. I have Rheumatoid Arthritis; sorry, not sorry.
Winder resident Jessica Brown is the staff photographer for the Barrow News-Journal. You can reach her at picsbyjessica1@gmail.com.
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