[Image: 6-piece blue colored background with a Siamese cat.Text reads: “What’s so stressful about being a greeter?” “Says the person without crippling social anxiety about a job that requires working with people day in and day out.”]

[Image: 6-piece blue colored background with a Siamese cat.Text reads: “Family member gets the same illness. Suddenly everyone is sympathetic.”]

It REALLY pisses me off that, after a lifetime of having ulcertive colitis, one side of my family only really started to realise that I can’t just “work through it” or “toughen up”. Why? Because my aunt, in her early forties, was diagnosed with the same thing. I’ve been dealing with these symptoms since I was a child and they’d always give me lectures and just … nope.

[Image: 6-piece blue colored background with a Siamese cat.Text reads: “”Wow you’ve gained weight.” Say it again and I’ll sit on you.”]

Anybody else experience terrible weight gain as a side effect? They put me on Abilify and I gained 60 pounds…yeah, that helped my “recovered” e.d….

[Image: 6-piece blue colored background with a Siamese cat.Text reads: “Two side effects: dry mouth and overactive bladder. You see my problem here]

-_____-

[Image: 6-piece blue colored background with a Siamese cat.Text reads: “Main symptom of depression: always tired. Main side effect of prozac: drowsiness”]

[Image: 6-piece blue colored background with a Siamese cat. The text is written in a circle around the cat, looping to read “Medication for the side effects of the medication for the side effects of the medication for the side effects of …”]

[Image: 6-piece blue colored background with a Siamese cat. Text reads: “Eating disorder triggers IBS. IBS triggers eating disorder.”]

Aah, the perpetual cycle.

[Image: 6-piece blue colored background with a Siamese cat. Text reads: Medication: Avoid direct sunlight. In Southeastern USA?]

In the Northwest, this wasn’t a problem.(+300 days of clouds and rain.) But in the Southeast? Get me a parasol and sunscreen! 

[Sorry for this being location specific.]

[Image: 6-piece blue colored background with a Siamese cat. Text reads: Go to ER with internal bleeding. DR tells me to go home.]

Sorry, I thought internal bleeding was kind of bad.

[Image: 6-piece blue colored background with a Siamese cat.Text reads: “Friend catches flu and complains about symptom they usually tease you about.  No sympathy.”]

My friend likes to tease me about how I’m always so tired. So when she caught the flu and complained about what sounded like exactly the level of fatigue I always feel, I couldn’t really bring myself to feel bad for her on that front.

Submitted by quantum-angel (whose computer is broken) and amorphe-hexe (who has the functioning computer, has to put up with his flashback complaints, and has many of the same issues).

[Image: Top half: 6-piece blue colored background with a Siamese cat.Text reads: “Chronic pain flares”. Bottom half: 4-piece teal and purple colored background with the head of a puma. Text reads: “Flash back to every time friends and family denied that you had it, ever.”]

Presenting a mashup with our friend, PTSD Puma.

[Image: 6-piece blue colored background with a Siamese cat.Text reads: “The school nurse is your best friend”]

I go to the nurse’s office at least once, usually twice a day. We have a nice chat sometimes. She even lets me take her keys so I can get my medicine without waiting for her. She doesn’t question it when I come in anymore and told me I can take whatever I need. We’re pretty tight.

[Image: 6-piece blue colored background with a Siamese cat.Text reads: “Receptionists at the doctor’s office know your name before looking you up”]

I’ve started saying “see ya soon” on the way out, haha.

[Image: 6-piece blue colored background with a Siamese cat.Text reads: “Longterm GP gives controlled substances” Under “Over phone”]

I <3 you doctor Paul.

[Image: 6-piece blue colored background with a Siamese cat.Text reads: “First half of decade playing down illness to seem normal” Bottom: “Second half of decade playing up symptoms just to be taken seriously”]