Theme
4:18am December 16, 2013

themarathonofholdingon:

  • it doesn’t matter how many pounds you’ve lost or gained
  • how many scars or stitches you have
  • how many times you’ve been to treatment and where you’ve gone
  • how many medical complications you have
  • how many times you’ve been at death’s door
  • how many years you’ve been struggling
  • how many diagnoses you have
  • how many meds you’ve been on
  • how many drug cocktails you’ve tasted
  • or how high you’ve gotten

illness is not a fucking competition

I so much wish more people realized this..

I used to know someone who whenever I said I had a condition she’d be like:

“No I have the REAL thing” and then rattle off a long list of symptoms or experiences or traits that supposedly made her sicker or worse off than me even when she wasn’t.

Like back when I didn’t really know what autism was, I said doctors had thought I was probably autistic.

And she was like “No doctors REALLY thought I was autistic because I spun in circles on the playground and wouldn’t talk to anyone and stiffened when my mother held me.”

(Except she turned out not to be autistic. And I did. And I could rattle off a comparable list of traits but what would be the fucking point?)

It was as if she felt threatened by anyone having more problems than her so she’d engineer conversations to make it sound like everyone else was lying or mistaken or exaggerating their problems but hers were the real thing. I think she thought it made her special or something, to always be the person suffering the most, and always in center stage.

He catch phrase was, “No I have REAL (insert condition / symptom. / experience here)”.

It was seriously obnoxious. Being around her was exhausting. So I stopped. I want to talk about chronic illness and disability without it being a game of one-upmanship. But so many people do that.

Notes:
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