Dear Healthy People:

Most of my lupus friends are frustrated with you — like BIGLY frustrated. It’s about how you handle cold and flu season and bouts of sickness in general. Not much makes an auto-immune compromised person more anxious than folks sneezing and coughing out in the open. Getting sick not only comes with the common symptoms you experience, but can take a much greater toll on our bodies.

That being said, I’m not writing tonight on how you can help us stay well.

I want to let you know the frustration because good friends tell you the truth. Every year when cold and flu season begins, the phlegm gets thicker, Kleenex goes on sale and you, healthy friends, drag in looking like who shot John — memes like these start flooding my timeline:

I understand why the chronic illness community feels this way. All we want is for you to get that you’re severe cold and flu is child’s play when most lupus patients feel that way 24/7. The memes symbolize our struggle and our want for you to really get it. I think what’s really annoying is the sheer self-absorption and obliviousness of some people.

On the flip side, I always encounter people who shut their own selves down after blurting out their tired, achy or sick. As if their right to express anything negative going on in their lives has been revoked while in my presence.  That’s not the right response either.

I think mutual compassion needs to be shown. The chronic illness community needs to show you all some grace. It’s unfair to compare. There’s levels to this thing. You’re in pain when you get sick and sure you will most likely get better and be back to your normal self. Just because when we get sick the pain and fatigue coil around our bodies like a life-sucking anaconda is not your fault, LOL.

A dear friend and doctor helped me to see this new perspective. I used to be skeptic and sarcastic about your sickness too — but no one has the market cornered on hurt or sickness. It’s universal.

So I get the anger, or a new term I saw “painger” from my lupus friends, but I hope we start to show you all a little more empathy. After all, isn’t it grace and empathy that we in the chronic illness community is always searching for in others?