19 Things You Need To Know About Chronically Ill People

I found this list floating around my Facebook feed. So I edited it lightly, and shared it there. I know it's not original content, but I felt the need to share it with my blog readers on Steem.

1. If we had the choice, we would never cancel plans.
2. Our illness won’t just go away. It isn’t a cold.
3. We don’t know how to answer you when you ask us if we’re feeling better. Because we aren’t… and we might never be.
4. Sometimes, all we need is to just know you are here for us.
5. We have exhausted all resources, so if there was a cure, we would know about it. But thank you for trying, and finding holistic and alternatives cures and treatments.
6. We’re trying very hard to lead a life.
7. Some days, it’s a struggle just to get out of bed. But on other days, we feel as if we could run at least part of a marathon! It is as confusing to us as it is to you.
8. We have a difficult time explaining how it feels to suffer from chronic pain.
9. We need a lot of sleep and we still wake up tired.
10. Please, please do not tell us that someone, somewhere has it worse than we do.
11. You’d think dealing with pain on a daily basis would mean we've gotten used to it know how to manage it. Nope.
12. We don’t want you to stop asking us to hang out. No matter how many times we have to say no or cancel.
13. Just because you haven’t heard of our condition doesn’t mean it isn’t real.
14. We may not look sick, but we are sick.
15. We don’t necessarily want sympathy, we just want acceptance. We just want our feelings and conditions to be validated by you and society.
16. We can’t just take medicine and make it all go away. Would be great if we could.
17. More often than not, we want you to ask us about our condition.
18. It may be a little difficult for us to listen to your adventures.
    But it’s not because we don’t care, it's because we want to have adventures of our own, and sometimes pain makes it hard to focus and listen.
19. And most of all, we want you to know we appreciate you and everything you do.