Can You See Me Now?

This week is very important–it’s National Invisible Chronic Illness Awareness Week.  Nearly half of all Americans have a chronic condition.  And I am among them.  I live my life with chronic pain that no one can see, except on days when I use crutches or my rollator.  But people still look at me, wondering why I need these devices.  Many people assume I’ve been in a car accident or had some other injury, but I haven’t.  Something else is going on with my body.  Right now they call it fibromyalgia, but I’m not sold on that diagnosis.  And right now, none of my treatments are helping.

While this week is about invisible illnesses, I would like to focus this post on having a visible illness (because of mobility aids) and yet being invisible.

I was at a meeting for the student chapter of my local teachers’ association, and we had been moving around doing a get-to-know-you activity and on my way back to my chair, I fell.  Completely.  Me, hands and knees, on the ground, because gravity decided to affect me extra strongly at that moment.

And the only person who asked (eventually) if I was ok was the boy I had walked in with who shares a class with me.  No one else.  No one offered a hand up, asked if I was alright, nothing.  What’s more, when they noticed that I had fallen, they looked away.  Maybe they didn’t want to be the first one to offer help.  Maybe they didn’t want to call attention to my disability and my fall.  Maybe they were embarrassed by me.  But I was there, on the floor, invisible to the two dozen other people in the small room.  (Two dozen future teachers, which concerns me.)

So, in a way, every person with a disability is invisible, whether their disability is completely invisible and they are discriminated because they don’t look sick, or because their disability is visible, and the world doesn’t know to react to such a difference.

So, can you see me now?

(Originally posted on another of my blogs: http://ruminarispoonie.wordpress.com)