Hey healthy people complaining that this is too hard/unfair, I’m going to let you in on a little secret chronically ill folks are all too aware of: DISEASES DON’T CARE. They don’t care what you can or can’t handle. They don’t care what your plans were. They. Don’t. Fucking. Care.

Diseases can happen to good people who lived good lives. Diseases can happen to main characters in your life (including you). Diseases don’t have to happen for a reason or have a deeper meaning/purpose in your life. Diseases do not give a shit about any of us or our lives.

I know our society needs to attach a morality & meaning to everything, but that’s a lie to comfort healthy/abled people. It’s not reality. It’s not how the world works. You can be given more than you can handle. Plenty of us are.

We don’t get sick because of moral failings or not trying hard enough, nor do we get sick because we can handle it or are inherently braver/stronger/more inspirational. We aren’t heroes. We aren’t angels. We aren’t cursed.

We aren’t failures who just didn’t drink enough green tea or eat enough kale. We’re people, same as you. And that means any one of you could join our ranks at a moment’s notice. And that’s fucking terrifying, I get it. But it’s also true. Man is mortal. Diseases exist.

Accidents happen. Bad things happen to good people and they don’t always happen to someone else or someone else’s loved ones. No purity or morality or scapegoating or fads or talismans will protect you from that. It’s the human condition. Put on your big boy pants & accept that.

It’s easier to blame people for their own misfortunes than accept that bad things could happen to you/the people you care about, but it’s way better for everyone if you do & then use that newfound acceptance to actually improve things for your fellow man (and maybe you & yours).

So, yeah, it sucks. Complain away about that, just like we complain about our illnesses and the hard/unfair/intolerable realities they’ve foisted on us, whether we could handle them or not. I promise we won’t demand inspiration porn or shove toxic positivity down your throat.

Negative emotions are valid. Anger is valid. Grieving is valid. It was valid for us too, no matter what healthy/abled people said. And remember this feeling next time we complain and give us the same space to grieve and rage and complain and rail against the stars.

That’s also the human condition.