On November 8, 2016, I shared the following post on Facebook about my experience with invisible illness. It was a couple of days after my fourth voice surgery. While I cope much better with my illness than the day I wrote this, and while it’s three years old, I can’t think of another time I was able to articulate so clearly why it’s important to believe people when they say they have an illness. With that in mind, I’m sharing it again here today.

November 8, 2016

I enjoyed the great relief of pulling the sticky, itchy bandage off my neck today. As my illness becomes less visible, please keep in mind there are so many people walking around with health issues you can’t see. Please believe them when they tell you about something they’re going through.

Warning: Mega Preaching Ahead ~ Non-election related, you’re welcome.

What follows is written entirely through the lens of voice problems. This is the only way I know how to express the importance of believing people about their bodies – by sharing my own experiences.

Due to comments often directed at me, I feel like I have to say that I realize how lucky I am and that it could be much, much worse. But that's not what this post is about.

Believe Them

I can’t count how many times someone has told me I’m too young to have anything physically wrong. It is frustrating hearing about how healthy you are when all your thoughts, money, energy, and emotions are pouring into trying to fix what’s wrong with your body.

I have spent many nights lying awake debating whether I really am causing all my own problems. How could this be happening to someone so young? I must have done something.

I genuinely thought I was abusing my voice until both my voice therapist (whom I’d been seeing for a year) and my voice surgeon both looked at my larynx with a scope at the same time and told me I was producing sound properly.

Worse than the “you’re too young” comments is when people question or even straight up deny your condition.

It’s one thing to ask how it works (So how much can you talk? Why does it change? ...etc.) But accusatory remarks like, “You were just talking in there, and now you’re not talking to me. You just don’t want to talk to me*.” or “You were just talking, so obviously you’re fine.” or “My dad has acid reflux and all he has to do is take medicine. Why can’t you do that?”

All of the above were said to my face while I was writing on a whiteboard trying to keep up with the conversation, or toting around tons of food because my doctor put me on a strict diet.

So don’t gaslight people. Don’t question them about their illness. Trust them.

No one wants to carry around a whiteboard and hope to finish writing in time to still be relevant in the conversation. No one wants to develop a habit for interrupting because their words have been squashed by someone louder so many times (working on it!). No one wants to cry in the back of the bar because it’s too loud to talk inside but too smoky to talk outside, and they just want to hang out with their friends. No one wants physical illness to exacerbate their depression because they literally don’t know how to live their life anymore.

No one wants to be health-poor (financially or otherwise), and no one wants to have four voice-related surgeries and numerous procedures within a two-and-a-half-year period.

There are many “no one wants” that we don’t know about. We all know someone who has or has faced cancer, diabetes, or debilitating mental illness.

Please believe their issues are real. Even if you can’t see them or don’t understand what’s going on with them.

It turns out you don’t actually have to understand it for it to be true.

*For the record, I have no problem walking away from you if I just don’t want to talk to you, thanks.