Awareness months matter

Today my best friend made me cry, she sent me a BBC news article about chronic pain and how sufferers are treated. It reminded me why raising awareness means so much to me and why awareness months matter.

I felt seen, like someone, a random journalist, cared enough to interview people and to write an article. Then a big place like BBC news thought it mattered enough to post it up and make it a push notification on people’s phones.

I doubt the journalists realised how much this means to people who suffer with no help and no light at the end of the tunnel. But I wish I could thank them for it because it meant the world to me.

I have been sharing my journey with chronic illness ever since I first got sick in my 20s back on livejournal. I started this blog in 2016 and sometimes I feel as if I am shouting out into the void because though other people with chronic pain read; healthy people rarely do.

In reality, it is the healthy people we need to reach, the MPs, the doctors and nurses and the people who try to minimise the things we go through every day. I make no money through this blog, or my YouTube channel and it can leave me feeling a little like my hobby is useless.

This month is awareness month for all of my illnesses, Ehlers Danlos Syndrome, ME/CFS, Fibromyalgia, depression and an anxiety disorder. Without these amazing charities and events pulling us all together it’s easy to forget you are not alone.

To see a mainstream place like BBC news seeing our suffering means that maybe we are seen, maybe somebody important will care and things will change. There are so many of us who have been left disabled by chronic illness, and we still matter even if society doesn’t think we do.

Awareness months matter because together we can lift one another up and get people’s attention, we are not shouting into the void… we are making a difference.

Thank you xxx