Living with an Invisible Illness, such as Lyme Disease or Chiari, may sometimes seem like living in a world without light. Most people don’t see the illness or how it affects you, they don’t see the darkness that fills you. They only see the physical you, the you that is defined as a human that is equivalent to everyone else in the world. Only the Invisibly Ill knows how difficult it is to live a life in the dark. We, the invisibles all have a commonality, we all know what it’s like to lose our life and all sense of normalcy to a disease while being pushed into a life of suffering that requires surviving from day to day. Along with battling a disease we have to deal with doctors ignoring us or dismissing our symptoms for fathoms of our imaginations for attention and lack of support from friends and family members. Not only do we have to fight for our health we also have to fight for our doctors to believe us, for the doctors that do treat us to not be scrutinized by the government, for our insurance companies to pay for our treatments, and for our family and friends to help support us financially and emotionally. It’s all a complicated and sometimes depressing process. However we are not alone in this battle through the darkness. The Invisible Illness community has grown quite a lot over the past few years with social networking. Now we the invisibles are more easily able to find people that are struggling with similar situations that we can relate to, vent with, and learn new ways to cope with our diseases. This new found source of community is also a great assistance in learning more from others about our own disease’s and other ways of treatment and healing that we may have not formerly be familiar with.
So no matter how dark the darkness is or how brutal the battle; there is always a light to shine within us that when we come together we will be surrounded by the light of power and healing.
