Guest Post: 5 Things I Wish People Understood About Having A Chronic Illness

Today I’m very excited to bring you a guest post from Caroline at The Little Things Blog. You may remember that Caroline allowed me to post on her blog back in September.  I have been following Caroline for a while, as she is such an inspiration. She pushes through her POTS symptoms in order to run races and teach Pilates. I can easily identify with all 5 things Caroline offers below. Please take a moment to visit her blog and learn more about Caroline! Caroline includes her contact information at the bottom of the post if you’d like to get in touch with her.

– Linds

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5 Things I Wish People Understood About Having A Chronic Illness:

Thanks so much to Lindsay for asking me to guest post today! I also have POTS; I was diagnosed a little over 10 years ago, but have been “sick” for almost 11 years now… just typing that leaves me feeling a bit sad. Living with a chronic illness makes life interesting, and I wish it came with a “how to manual” for family and friends. So here are five things I wish that people could understand about having a chronic illness:

1. I can be smiling, laughing, and having fun, and feel sick and in pain all at the same time. It’s easy for people to say “well you aren’t acting sick” and ignore the reality of what those of us with chronic illness are going through. If I acted in line with how I felt, I wouldn’t be the cheery, driven person that I am today.
2. Most of the time, we don’t mind talking about it. Quite honestly, I’m really happy to talk about POTS, and try to help people understand it better. I have a huge amount of appreciation for the friends I have who have taken the time to get to know my experiences, and help support me through them.
3. With chronic illness, my day is pretty much 100% different than my friends. From the time I wake up to the time I go to bed, I’m constantly thinking and adjusting what I need to do based on my experiences. I stand and talk to people and have to work on getting my blood to not settle too much in my legs to avoid passing out. I carry salt with me so I can take it the moment I start getting dizzy. I count ounces of water to make sure I’m getting enough. I don’t leave the house without making sure that I have multiple meds with me. These are just a few examples of things I constantly have to do on top of what the average human does in living. (This post here: http://www.thelittlethingsblog.com/10-years-with-pots/ might give you an idea of what my days are actually
   like).
4. Requests that are “little” might actually be pretty big. With a chronic illness, experiences can be magnified, so what seems little to you might actually be a really big deal. It might seem “ridiculous” or “dramatic”, but we usually know what we need. If you have questions, be open to the discussion and explanation, and just ask.
5. Peoples’ experiences with the same illness could be vastly different, so comparison is generally unhelpful. My life with POTS can look pretty different than someone else’s with POTS, and that doesn’t mean my POTS is “better” or “worse”. Getting to know each individual’s specific case is definitely important!

Obviously there are SO many more things about living with a chronic illness that I wish people would understand, but these are a great start. If you’d like to know more about my life with POTS, check out my link here(http://www.thelittlethingsblog.com/postural-orthostatic-tachycardia-syndrome/ ).  If you’d like to know more about living with POTS, check out my post on “30 Things You Might Not Know About My Life With POTS” (http://www.thelittlethingsblog.com/30-things-you-may-not-know/ ). If you’d like to connect more or have questions about POTS, you can find me the following ways:

Twitter: @kalolainastar

Instagram: @ littlethingscaroline

Email: littlethingscaroline [at] gmail [dot] com

Pinterest: http://www.pinterest.com/littlethingscar

Caroline is a Mental Health Counselor, Pilates Barre Instructor, half marathoner, and the blogger behind “The Little Things Blog” at http://www.thelittlethingsblog.com .  If you’re interested in running, biking, pilates/barre, traveling, POTS/chronic illness, or mental health issues, come check out my blog!