talkhealth Blog

If there was one thing that I wished people understood about Crohns Disease, it’s that just because I do not look or act sick, DOES NOT mean I am not sick.  I could very easily look sick every day and complain every time I do not feel well, but what would that accomplish?  Plus, not feeling well is an almost constant state.  I joke that I am nauseous 95% of the time, but the sad thing is, I’m not joking.

Almost all day, Every day, I am experiencing symptoms from my Crohns Disease: Nausea, fatigue, headaches, pain, cramping and heartburn.  It is tiring, it is hard, and it is constant, but it is also a normal part of my life.  This means that there is literally zero point in sharing this information with those around me all the time.  In fact, I take great pride in not acting or appearing sick.  However, the catch 22 is that people often under estimate the severity of Crohns disease because we don’t look sick!

We tend to be a society that focuses on appearances.  Stereotypes are assigned and assumptions are made, solely based on how someone looks.  Have you ever had something going on in your life that you didn’t want to talk about or didn’t want other people to know about?  You hid it, right? And people around you have no idea that it is going on, but that does not mean that it sucks any less or that it isn’t happening.  

It is actually Ironic how deceiving looks can be. When it comes to other things in life we all know that we can’t judge them just based on appearances.  To try to make my point, I’m gonna compare myself to a car and not just any car, I’m a Aston Martin Vanquish.  So maybe I had to do some googling to find an expensive car that I wanted to be compared to, but it really is a beautiful car!

So you wouldn’t buy this car just because it looks nice, you would check out how the car runs and make sure all the internal pieces are functioning properly.  No matter how nice it looks, if it doesn’t run correctly, then it’s not something you want to purchase.

This is where the analogy falls apart since I’m not for sale.  But the point I was attempting to make, is that we don’t judge other things in our life based on appearances, so why do we judge each other based on appearances?  I am rarely going to look sick and I rarely ever complain, but that doesn’t mean you should undermine my illness by telling me I’m exaggerating or faking…

Because trust me when is say, I am never faking my symptoms or my disease in my not so normal life.