People Say the Darndest Things: Everyone Gets Sick, Everyone Gets Tired

I think it is a misguided effort to help us not feel so bad when people tell us, “Everybody gets sick,” or “Everybody gets tired.” If they are trying to make us feel included in “everybody” that’s nice. It doesn’t work, but it’s a nice try. Sometimes, I really want to respond with a snappy, “Really? Wow! I had no idea! Thanks for cluing me in.” But that’s rude. (When I am on steroids, I will most likely say it anyway-‘roid rage, you know.) Other times, I want to take a more educational approach. “Yes, everybody gets sick but YOU get better and I don’t.” Or, “This kind of tired is like when you worked all day, stayed up all night, and worked all day the next day. It’s bone crushing fatigue and a burning brain.” It doesn’t do much good. The folks who live in the land of the healthy just can’t get it. What we experience is not your average sickness or your average fatigue. The sickness is not cured by medication and the fatigue is not relieved by rest.

Here is the problem. They make a casual remark. What we hear is a judgment. We SHOULD stop complaining, suck it up, realize that this is the human condition, put on our big girl/big boy panties and get over it. There is not much you can do to change their perception. But you can change yours. Remind yourself that your experience of chronic illness is your experience, no one else’s. Other people don’t have to understand it. And you don’t have to educate them or kill them!