Can I have a seat please?

A packed metro or bus, a waiting room with no free seating place, queuing at a booth, a full elevator … 😫🤕
The pain is agonizing, you can’t stand up for very long, unable to take the stairs 😓

People with arthritis often face a lack of understanding in such situations. ↩️
Because you don’t look ill? Surely you can keep standing or take the stairs? Afterall, you are young?
How do you deal with this? 🗣🤔

MISUNDERSTANDINGS
➡️ ‘You don’t look ill, so it can’t be that bad’.
This is something a lot of people with a chronic illness find very frustrating. Nothing to ‘see’ on the outside’, although suffering on the inside. #invisiblyill
➡️ ‘Arthritis is an old people’s disease’.
Wrong!! Arthritis is an auto-immune disease and is not the same as joint ware. Even children get arthritis. Spondyloarthritis is often diagnosed in early adulthood (twenties and thirties).

Note: I’m focusing on arthritis here, since Im diagnosed with this myself. The frustration of being invisibly ill also applies to other chronic diseases.

Originally published on FB page of Crip Humanimal on May 15, 2023