Meds for pain/chronic illness & IGNORANT people send hate mail,how do u respond?

Question

FIBRO-INVISIBLE

Making the Invisible, VISIBLE!!

You slip the handicapped parking placard onto your dashboard and get out of your car, stretching as you stand up from the cramped car seat. The man walking by ..notices you parked there and hollers out: "HEY! You dont look handicapped to me!"he was only doing what he thought was right, BUT ...what of these diabled by heart problems, Fibromyalgia, MS, Seizures...and a host of other INVISIBLE DISEASES!?

Societe's awareness of visible disability has taken leaps and bounds following the anti-discrimination legislation enacted several years ago...THERE IS NO EXCUSE now for thinking htat people in wheelchairs are STUPID< DUMB< CONTAGIOUS or IGNORANT and that they dont deserve a good paying job!...

Unfortunately, the average person's views about INVISIBLE DISABILITIES and CHRONIC ILLNESSES are NOT yet so enlightened....HOW SAD! Suffererers are met with skepticism, rudeness, hositility and with being told that they are outright LYING or that they "LOOK REAL HEALTHY"Yet......they are going thru a LIVING h**l !!!

Why is societys attitude and accomodations lagging behind for those whose problems are LESS VISIBLE OR INVISIBLE?

For a start, simply because these problems ARE less visible. We always make first impressions by how we look, to get people to see BEYOND appearances is tricky. Society tends to want to ignore illness anyway.

It's easier to convince yourself that the sufferer is EXAGGERATING, or LYING! If you can not SEE their pain . It is much harder to convince oneself that the man in the wheelchair is just kicking up a fuss about not being able to get up the stairs, when ALACK AND ALAS ...the FIBROMYALGIA patient SELDOM can use stairs!!! or do what they use to deem NORMAL chores like cooking, cleaning, making a bed....or grocery shopping. It wears them OUT to the point of exhaustion!

Many invisible conditionsa are variable....The concept of "reasonable accomadation" of disability is TRICKIER with the INVISIBLE DISEASE...It is OBVIOUS the wheelchair needs a ramp...but how about the fibromyalgia sufferer who cant KNOW IN ADVANCE if she will be well enough to CALL 24 hours in advance to her DRS appt ? or the office ?

THINK ABOUT IT!

Fibromyalgia/FMS the INVISIBLE DISEASE

Answer 1

Be Thankfull! I have Rheumatoid Arthritis, Psoriasis and Fibro, but last year the nice small disc bulge, ripped and I ended up with a prolapsed disc. Enter the Community Nurse and wheelchair, Back Brace, you name it. Driving, interesting, so I made an appointment to gain my Disabled Parking Disc and change the car to wheelchair accessible. Logical? Off I went to the major Health Service HQ, looked around, Public Parking too far away, so parked in a accessible bay. Sat their, I suddenly realized, impossible to use a wheelchair as they had kerbs around the bay? I donned the back brace, got my crutches and off I went. On arrival the door automatically opened and the Security Officer was busy texting in the corner, did not see me arrive. Before I even got the the Chief Medical Officers office, the Chief Medical Office told me I would not get what I needed! To add insult to injury, on returning to the car, they had stuck a large notice on the car illegally parked and clamped me, ready to tow away! So I telephoned the local Media and we had a ball! I never got my parking badge, let alone tax off a new car, moreover I am back up on my feet walking. Took a lot of time, Pilate&#039;s, PT, but I made it. Meanwhile I have now been measured for a electric wheelchair, so guess that means my walking days are numbered but for now I will keep going. Best of Luck  

Answer 2

I have had FM for over two decades. I have multitude of other chronic invisible disorders, all of which cause me chronic pain, nerve, bone and muscle damage. So I know where you are coming from. I have learned to control my anger by becoming more discriminating about my circle of friends. Outsiders I could give a hoot about what they think. But this attitude took time. First I had to accept it myself. I had become LESS than what I ONCE was, and that was a fact.

Generally, if a person in my life is negative, I find a way to cut them out. This may sound harsh. You can learn to ignore the attitudes of those you cannot detach from them. You are in control of YOUR attitude, never forget that! Which means, of course, everyone else is in control of their attitude, and you cannot change that. Accept that, too. Then shrug your shoulders, and say &quot;Oh, well&quot;. Move on.

Reduce the nay-sayers around you. They will not change and they will increase your pain due to the frustration you feel. I have narrowed my circle of friends. I do not engage in the activities I once was able to, due to my illnesses. That&#039;s ok, because have found different things to do. I had to.

Gotta be tough in this world. One way or another.

Answer 3

Very interesting , I can see why you have the disease in the first place ,and don&#039;t take this wrong , but I can see that you give people too much control over what you think and it is eating you up inside .

Of course people are evil , that will never change , but what you can change is how you let them affect you .

You can&#039;t allow people to control your happiness , by what they think , if they can get you to think like this , then it&#039;s the same as drinking poison .

You are what you eat , and you are what you think , but we think far more than we eat , so if you think poison thoughts and allow others to make you this upset it will kill you .

And you can&#039;t change the world by posting stuff like this , you can only change you .

So God grant me the sense to change what I can , and to acept the thing I can&#039;t change .

Answer 4

Tell them that mental illness counts too and that you are a psychopathic serial killer under a doctors care!  I am kidding but the best thing to do is ignore them. You don&#039;t want a confrontation.  

Answer 5

Good question.  I am so tired of being treated as a malingerer because people think I look perfectly healthy when I suffer from FMS, IBS, TMJ, BDD, diabetes, chronic depression, a dysfunctional kidney valve and migraines.  Sometimes I am unable to function due to flare ups of one or the other of these diseases.  Just because none of the symptoms show on the outside, doesn&#039;t mean I am not in severe pain!!  I call it my 3-initial syndrome.  I have all these miserable things with 3 initials that no one understands or thinks should impact my functioning.  Yet so often they do.  And then there are the stupid anti-drug people who try to tell me that all drugs are bad and I should just &quot;pull myself out of it&quot; and not use drugs.  

Answer 6

People who know nothing about disabilities expect that they should be visible which we know they are not. What they can&#039;t see doesn&#039;t exist. I have SLE, Fibromyalgia and degenerative arthritis and live with constant pain. There is a site called &quot;But you don&#039;t look sick&quot; See if there is anything there you can use and get some flyer&#039;s printed. When people abuse you just hand them one and say &quot;read this&quot; or put one along side of your disabled sticker and tell them to read it. Get a walking stick and use this as it is visible. Don&#039;t let them get to you..it is their ignorance not yours.