A great friend of mine found this article on the But You Don’t Look Sick website, and I think it is worth sharing. Enjoy!
“I’m fine.” We say those words multiple times a day. How often does anybody ever really mean them? For those of us living with invisible chronic illnesses, do we ever mean it? If we don’t mean it, then why on earth do we say it?
We say I’m fine because it’s what’s expected of us, because how often does the other person really want to know (and even if they say they do, they certainly don’t mean they want an in depth analysis every single time they ask). We say I’m fine because we really don’t want to go into the myriad of appointments this month or the inconclusive tests, or the trial and error of medications. We say I’m fine because we don’t want to hear, yet again, the saga of how Great Aunt Muriel cured her Lyme’s Disease by drinking beaver urine and maybe, just maybe, it would help you too.
It’s easier to say I’m fine than say I’m tired, nauseous, every joint in my body hurts, I miss solid food, and I’m sick of being sent from specialist to specialist and feeling like a pincushion only to have people look back and say you’re always sick or what are you doing to yourself to keep having all this happen to you. Maybe if you did this… Or to be faced with looks of pity because you’re sick and they feel helpless because you being sick is hard for them.
I say I’m fine because maybe if I say it often enough, I might start to feel a little bit fine. I say I’m fine because I wish I was, because I want to be, I want to believe that someday I can be. I say I’m fine because it’s easier than the alternative, because I don’t want to lose anybody else because they’ve decided they don’t want to have the sick girl as a friend.
That’s the beauty of an invisible illness. You can say you’re fine because no one can see that you’re not. If I was covered with green and blue dots, it would be harder to hide, but I’m able to masquerade as a healthy person. So when you ask, I’ll probably keep saying I’m fine regardless of how I feel. Of course, Minnesota Nice may come into play in some of this, since chances are, even if you see me cradling my severed left arm in my right, I’m probably still going to smile and say I’m fine if you ask me how I am.
Article written by Staff Writer, Agnes Reis
