Somebody living with a chronic illness.
Simply by saying that, you’ve got in your mind a fixed image. It may be someone in a wheelchair, or someone who has a dialysis machine, or even has an oxygen tank trailing behind them. And while all of these people will be living with some forms of chronic illnesses, many people who have these struggles aren’t so easy to spot.
I have multiple chronic illnesses. This morning, I woke up and listened to Taylor Swift and Noah Kahan as I put on my makeup. I watched the harsh lines blend into each other. I watched my eyelashes darken with mascara as my eyes darkened with focus. I reached into my fridge and got out my medication. Rolling up my shorts, I read the directions I’ve read so many times already, and the muscle memory took over. I changed the needle, corrected the dosage, and I didn’t even blink as I felt the cold liquid sprawling under my skin. I still felt nauseous as I walked to work. I could still feel the soreness in my thigh.
Looking at me, you’d never know. That, itself, is an issue. We need to work on subverting the idea that disabled people look a certain way. I’ve had people come up to me, praising me for ‘training’ my service dog, telling me I do “wonderful work” and that I’m going to make “someone’s life a lot easier”. They didn’t know how light-headed I was, how Blanco was my dog, constantly talking me down from a panic attack. College, for anyone, can be exhausting. The long nights, the constant haze of homework and the thrill of being alone as an adult for the first time. Now imagine all of that, but being in constant pain. Moving a little slower. Taking a little more effort to focus. Feeling like walking 10 minutes to your class is the equivalent of walking from USF to downtown Tampa.
Teachers have been incredibly helpful, friends have been even better, and student accessibility services at USF are the best of all the Florida universities I visited back in 2019, when college was a faraway dream. I’ve found that the toughest person to deal with has been myself. I’ll be daydreaming in a class as an attempt to distract myself from searing abdominal pain, then later curse myself for not taking notes. I’ll move a little slower than my friends on a bad day and always push myself to catch up. That seems to always be what I’m doing. Pushing myself to ‘catch up’. As if life is homogenous. Linear.
Events at school are overridden by pain or the constant worry of when my next flare will be. I always look for exits. I always try not to be an inconvenience. There’s this shame in asking for help. Living with chronic illnesses, especially in college where your parents don’t fight your battles anymore, you have to stand up for yourself and for your accommodations. As a college student, I have to deal with medications and appointments and fear. Unless you see the bruises on my leg from my needles, or the TENS machine I always have in my backpack, or the array of orange pill bottles in my desk drawer, you wouldn’t know.
So be more empathetic. Be kinder. If someone walks a little slower or seems to have difficulty focusing on what you have to say, be patient. They might be covering up bruises of their own.