There’s an article on Diversity, Inc: ‘But You Look So Good!’ and 7 Other Things NOT to Say to a Person With a Non-Visible Disability

If you have a friend, relative or coworker with an illness or disability that isn’t obvious, you may think you’re doing the right thing by saying he or she “looks so good.” You can’t even tell the person has a disability, and that’s a good thing, right? Wrong.

 

Why do people with disabilities take offense to this comment and others like it? Ninety-six percent of illnesses are invisible to the average person, according to InvisibleIllness.com. To comment on a person’s outward appearance dictates, intentionally or otherwise, that they should feel the way they look: just fine.

 

However, non-visible or chronic illnesses, such as diabetes, mental illness, lupus, multiple sclerosis and fibromyalgia, can be debilitating.

Oh, I don’t know.  I have fibromyalgia and other health problems, few people know it, and that’s just how I like it.  And anytime someone tells me I look good, baby, I’m taking that and running with it.  Seriously.  I’m going to be 39 tomorrow.  Life is too short to dissect or question a compliment.  Just enjoy them.

I absolutely know that fibromyalgia and other chronic illnesses are a serious problem, and there are emotional components to those illnesses as well.  I just can’t find much to be offended about in the comment, although I also know that when I’m having a particularly bad time and am in a lot of pain, I tend to be, errr… grumpy.  Still, that gripe aside, it’s an interesting article, especially where it conflates chronic illnesses with disabilities.

Coping with a chronic illness at work is often a struggle.  While I do not want to inflict my clients with stories of my health woes, it has occasionally affected deadlines, and when it happens I need to give some explanation for that.  I’m often self-conscious about it – my hair was falling out and getting quite thin last year, for example.  Should I explain, ignore, get a wig?  Luckily it stopped before I had to decide.  My husband was diagnosed with diabetes last year, and now he needs to plan things like when to test and to eat.  It affects his day to day routines.  So even these relatively minor things are troublesome and life-affecting.  People have to cope the best way they can.    Here’s what really interested me about the article:

This year, Sept. 10-16 is National Invisible Chronic Illness Awareness Week. Since 2002, the week has been recognized nationally each year to unite and mobilize people with non-visible disabilities and illnesses and their allies to educate government, healthcare companies, and the general public about the 133 million people living with a chronic condition. That number is expected to increase by more than one percent a year to 150 million by 2030, according to a study for The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and 42 million of those will be limited in their ability to go to school, to work, or to live independently. Read the full study.

If less than one-third of the people living with a chronic condition are limited in their ability to go to school, to work, or live independently (criteria most people would agree is important to defining someone as “disabled”) why are the two lumped together?  Is the goal simply to have a larger grievance group?  And this was breathtaking:

This Means You

 

If you think this won’t be a concern until old age, take note: 75 percent of people with chronic conditions are younger than 65.

 

One of the biggest obstacles in the disability community is the attitude of the temporarily able-bodied.

The temporarily able-bodied.  Good grief.  Age happens.  Life happens.  Anyone can be injured or diagnosed with an illness at any time.  But are we all destined to be classified as disabled in the end?  Why not just classify us all as dying?  After all, each day we live we are one day closer to death.  No, thanks.  If that attitude makes me an obstacle to the disability community, too bad.