The Fault In Our Stars & Thoughts On Invisible Illness

I recently read the book ‘The Fault In Our Stars’ by John green. It is a really good book that details a beautiful love story between two teenagers, Hazel Grace Lancaster and Augustus Waters. It is inevitably a terribly sad story given that Hazel Grace is terminally ill and if you read it, it will most likely have you in tears. However, there is the theme of hope running throughout and it is a honest reflection of life with illness. It is an enjoyable yet emotional book that I could have easily read it in a day if I let myself. Instead, I chose to draw the story out over a few days. Partly because I was enjoying it and wanted it to last but mostly because I knew the ending would be upsetting and I wanted to delay it. I figured out the ending of the book pretty early on. This didn’t affect my enjoyment of the book though.

I am not going to give away any spoilers in case you haven’t read the book and would like to and I don’t intend this post to be a review. There was just one thing that the protagonist Hazel Grace said that really struck a chord with me and got me thinking about how it applies to invisible illnesses:

“I’m a grenade and at some point I’m going to blow up and I would like to minimize the casualties, okay?”

I don’t for a second claim to know what it must be like to be given a terminal diagnosis. It’s something I cannot even begin to comprehend. However, the quote resonated with me. Having a chronic illness is to suffer without an end date. And in that suffering you want to protect and shield as many people from the hurt as possible. You don’t want to upset people. You don’t want people to feel pain because of you. You don’t want your pain to cause any more suffering than it needs to. So you shut off from how you are feeling, put on your brave face and battle on as though nothing was wrong with you. It’s so incredibly hard to do this but from the outside, no-one would be able to guess otherwise because our illness is invisible. We have the ability to hide our illness, which can be both a blessing and a disadvantage. The disadvantage being that, by hiding our illness, we essentially distance ourselves (and how we are truly feeling) from people. In essence, we are effectively shutting ourselves away from potential support. I have seen a lot of people complain on social media about how people do not understand invisible illness and that people show no sympathy towards those suffering. Sure, there are people out there who lack empathy and who aren’t very kind towards those who are ill. I say ignore them. You’re best approach is to have nothing to do with toxic people like that. If you can’t do that then at the very least limit your exposure to them.

However, I truly believe that they are the minority and that most people in our lives do not intentionally lack empathy or understanding towards us. If they “don’t get it,” empower yourself to do something to change that. If you feel like no one gets how you feel, there are two ways you can handle the situation. 1. Moan and complain about the people concerned, or 2. open up to them and help them to understand. The first solution does nothing but cause you frustration and stress, both of which should be considered enemies of chronic illness. The second solution has two outcomes: they either gain an understanding and become more supportive or they continue to lack empathy. If it’s the latter, treat them like I said above and limit your exposure to them. And let it go. It’s so important to let things go. Change the things you can and let go of the things you can’t.

It’s important to remember that having a visible illness presents problems too and is not in any way easier. As Hazel Grace puts it, the visibility of your illness immediately separates you from other people:

“The physical evidence of disease separates you from other people. We were irreconcilably different…”

When you have a visible illness, everyone knows about it. We have the blessing of choosing who we tell. However, it’s important to remember that if we do not open up to anyone and if we continue to act as though all is well then people are going to struggle to understand how our illness affects us. Be empowered to create awareness by being honest and open with people you trust. You will probably find that your support network grows as a result.