#arthritis

Idk what person with chronic illness needs to hear this, but you can do things to make your responsibilities nicer for yourself. You can get an ice cream after a blood draw. You can sit down for tv time after an injection. You can pick out the bandaids that have cartoon characters on them instead of the plain ones. Being an adult doesn’t stop you from benefiting from encouragement. Go for whatever fits with your routine/abilities/budget and makes life a little better. A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down etc etc

I wish able bodied people could understand that being disabled gives you a fundamentally different relationship with hygiene. Would I love to take a shower tonight? Absolutely. But I am deeply exhausted in a way someone without a disability can’t understand. My entire body hurts anytime I do anything. I had to fight just to brush my teeth, and I’m lucky I could even do that. A shower is just not in the cards right now, I just have to hope it’ll be in the cards tomorrow. Most people seem to think that makes me disgusting, but this is just how I have to live. I don’t like it anymore than you do.

chronic illness sucks. i was a dreamer who believed i could do anything. i was a kid with so much potential for greatness. i promised myself i'd never let anything break me but being in pain every day for years on end breaks you. It breaks you over and over no matter how many times you reshape yourself to something new. a dreamer is all i have ever been. who am i without the dreams that keep being stolen from me

I'm here, I'm queer, my joint pain is moderate to severe.

Someone should invent joints that don’t hurt