Growing Deeper Roots: My Story of Invisible Illness

"Everything happens for a reason." -Someone who has never mourned.  This dangerously misled and shallow misinterpretation of life is nothing less than emotional, spiritual, and psychological violence. It is nothing less than utter bullshit.  Whether you are mourning the loss of a loved one or a failed relationship or your lost health, this is the last thing you want to hear but it will be said to you. Someone out there with their incredibly naive perception of reality and Pollyanna outlook on your tragedy will utter this bullshit in response to your pain.  "Everything happens for a reason," "God has a plan," "This pain will make you a better person," and all your other painful paradoxical platitudes will not make it easier for me to watch my life shift in response to my lost health. All you are doing with these phrases is replacing my grief with unsolicited advice.  Now, I'm not saying that I do not recognize that I have grown immens...

One of the cool (I use this word loosely) things about being in the Lyme community is that it is HUGE. Now on one hand this completely sucks because there are 300,000 new Lyme patients every single year and the majority of the political, social and medical world is ignoring us. But on the other hand, this means that even when I'm laying on the couch all day alone at home watching all my friends post summer fun pictures from all over the world, I know that I'm not really alone. I might be confined to my bed during the majority of the summer and my socialization might be limited to interactions with doctors and my caregiving family, but while reading blogs from all over the world (Lyme is worldwide, don't forget) and connecting to other people who are going through this too, I can keep a little bit of my sanity. So I've collected some of my favorite and most relatable quotes from other blogs about Lyme disease and Chronic illness. Here are a few. From  Maisie  of Lyme ...