Chronic Illness Truth #1

Welcome to the beginning of Chronically Beautiful's "Chronic Illness Truth" series where we share bluntly honest truths with you about the reality of living with chronic illness!  This series will serve two main purposes:
#1: The first purpose is to educate the healthy and help cultivate love, compassion, and understanding to the chronic illness community.  The best way to help and serve others is by coming to an awareness of the suffering all around us, and the more knowledge we have, the greater our opportunities we'll have to help.
#2:  The second purpose is to build the chronic illness community through sharing things that everyone can relate to so that nobody feels alone or forgotten in their chronic illness journey.  Most of these truths that I post will be specific to Lyme disease, but I'm sure that almost anyone with any chronic illness can relate, and that will help us to make connections and form a greater community of support and understanding! 

Chronic Truth #1:
It is very common for people to ask me what my illness is when they find out I have a chronic illness, and it's also very common for others to feel uncomfortable about asking.  I just want to clarify that it's completely okay for anyone to ask about my illness.  It doesn't make me uncomfortable, and I often enjoy the conversation that comes from that question.

One of the funniest things to me is when people mispronounce Lyme disease.  Seriously, it's probably one of the easier illnesses to pronounce and yet so many people throw an S at the end of it!  Go figure!

Believe it or not, I've actually had people ask me if my illness comes from limes, and it actually comes from a tick or any other biting insect that can carry the bacteria.  It can also be passed down to your children, as is my case.  My mom has had Lyme from a tick bite since she was nine, and therefore I was born with it.

It never ceases to amaze me how strong anyone with a chronic illness is.  I've spent many a morning wondering how on earth I'm still alive after the night before, and yet I'm still here and I'm still kicking!  I've seen this phenomenon among many chronically ill people.  We truly are WARRIORS who fight long and hard for our lives, and as we do so we often feel worn down and exhausted from fighting the fight.  Nevertheless, we value life, and we continue to fight in hopes that we can be healed and then help others on their healing journey.

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Comment below if you've ever had someone mispronounce your illness, or if you're completely amazed at how you're still alive!  And stay tuned for more of our Chronic Illness Truth series!