28/05/2026
You know what sucks more than anybody could ever possibly know about living with chronic illness/disabilities, unless you're going through it yourself or are close to somebody experiencing it
The fact that, it takes me 2-3 days to prepare my body and my mind, just to go out for half a day and spend some time with my family
The fact that, after I have been out for half a day, my body will need 2-3 days of doing practically nothing to recover physically and mentally from that half a day out
The fact that, 6 years on from my diagnosis of 3 bulging spinal discs, 3 years on from my diagnosis of Ankylosing Spondylitis, 2 years on from a firm diagnoses of thoraculumbar scoliosis, despite being told its been getting progressively worse as ive been growing from my teenage years and 1 year on from my diagnosis of fibromyalgia...I have watched myself deteriorate from being somewhat active to the above....within 6 years! Yes I have all of these simultaneously
The fact that, jobs that others take for granted, like hoovering the car, or washing the dishes, takes all of the above, time to prepare, more time to actually do the task, and recovery afterwards. Where, in my 20's I could do a full day's housework and barely break a sweat. These days, im breathing out of my arse after hoovering 1 level of the house and carrying the hoover downstairs
The fact that, to the outside world, I look like your average 38 year old, able bodied, dad bod (my weight has barely fluctuated in the last 10 years 🤣)...but on the inside, the time it has taken me to get as far as other people seeing me, the task im doing almost becomes null and void
The fact that, I, like many other disabled people, will be labelled a scrounger, told that I should 'get a job' and 'stop milking the system. The fact that I will be compared to another disabled person, possibly somebody's brother, sister, mum or dad, who has the same conditions, or something worse, and they manage to work
The fact that people will make out that I have a 'free car paid for by the taxpayer' when I pay money that is used to help me with the extra costs of my multiple disabilities and that car is the only source of independence that I still have, enabling me to get out of the house and feel like a human for once
The fact that, I can say all of this, and it won't make a single bit of difference, people will still blindly judge, people will still discriminate, people will still compare, people will still tell me im a lazy scrounger. And whats worse, they don't even know the half of it, despite the mammoth length of this post
I still haven't gotten into a majority of the psychological issues, caused by all of the above and so much more. People will still not see the pain behind the mask, the fact that I have tried to end my own life 6 times in the last 5 years (yes, I fail at that too 🤣) most recently a month ago, because I would give anything to go back to being able bodied
I used to run, 5k and 10k road races for charity. I used to climb mountains, I used to bike ride, I used to do so many things and disability has taken all of that and more away from me! So go ahead, judge me for my seemingly normal outward appearance, judge me for the fact that I don't (can't) work or that I'm fleecing the system, but just bear in mind the rest of this post before you do...karma has a funny way of repaying those kinds of attitudes
