Disability Visibility

Follow up post #3 This is a mini-series on mental health when you have a chronic illness or physical disability. The goal is to raise awareness for how high the chance of suicide is, and the fact that mental illness when you have a chronic condition is inevitable. And, also very importantly, to give coping skills to and visibility to those who need it. TW: talk of mental illness and suicide I would like to start this blog by saying I'm not an anomaly. 20,000 people with chronic pain commit suicide annually, which is higher than the government's number of opiate overdoses. There is a clear connection between chronic pain and chronic illness (people with a lower quality of life due to a health condition) with depression, anxiety, medical PTSD, and suicide. There's a substantial risk of suicide for people with 2 or more conditions- and most chronic conditions have comorbidities. People with CRPS, the most painful condition, have many risk factors of suicide such as depressi...

Co-writers @health_and_unwellness and @chronically.undiagnosed92 follow up from my previous post. This is a mini-series on mental health when you have a chronic illness or physical disability. The goal is to raise awareness for how high the chance of suicide is, and the fact that mental illness when you have a chronic condition is inevitable. And, also very importantly, to give coping skills to and visibility to those who need it. TW: talk of mental illness and suicide I would like to start this blog by saying I'm not an anomaly. 20,000 people with chronic pain commit suicide annually, which is higher than the government's number of opiate overdoses. There is a clear connection between chronic pain and chronic illness (people with a lower quality of life due to a health condition) with depression, anxiety, medical PTSD, and suicide. There's a substantial risk of suicide for people with 2 or more conditions- and most chronic conditions have comorbidities. People with ...

This blog is dedicated to every person who has a physical and mental health diagnosis. This is a mini-series on mental health when you have a chronic illness or physical disability. The goal is to raise awareness for how high the chance of suicide is, and the fact that mental illness when you have a chronic condition is inevitable. And, also very importantly, to give coping skills to and visibility to those who need it. While everybody reading this blog knows, chronic conditions usually come with a mental health diagnosis, and that's normal- but when your symptoms are so severe they have taken over every part of your life and drained your quality of life, it's easy to see how you would have suicidal thoughts. The sad thing, is it never has to get that bad, but the medical system will make you wait until you are ready to end it all. My pain could have [relatively] easily been stopped, but all the doctors that denied care made my life impossible. When my 9/10 back pain was just...

Guest post by: Hannah, my friend from Instagram, she's a kind selfless person and we met basically by her giving me a free cute little stuffed lamb she made my hand! Go and show her some love on instagram @chronically.undiagnosed92 “We don’t know what is wrong with you.” You hear this type of statement time and time again, and slowly you lose hope that there will ever be a different answer. Still, each and every day you get up and do everything in your power to function as normally as possible even when your body and mind are fighting you every step of the way. Living with an undiagnosed chronic illness is a roller coaster of emotional and physical highs, lows and gut-wrenching turns. For me, I had already lived in the medical system for quite a while before what I consider to be my chronic illness’s development. Back in August of 2015 I had a gastric sleeve bariatric surgery, which left me with devastating complications. Those complications have caused my oesophagus (the ...