Dear ‘I Got My PhD from WebMD’,

I’m sick, not stupid.

I’m constantly being told what to do to solve my problems. As a person who struggles with both mental and physical health, my body and my life become an open forum to anyone and everyone who comes in contact with me. All of a sudden, everyone is an expert and everyone has a cure.

When you are sick, the first thing you do is search for different ways to help yourself. You look at all the symptoms, you watch videos and read articles (much like this one) to find people who are going through similar things for some kind of insight. As long as the information is public, you have seen it, and have exhausted your options for the most part. You take vitamins, you do your best to exercise through the pain, you try homoeopathic remedies and bounce from doctor to doctor for second opinions. In contrary to what most people seem to believe, we care about our health, and we are doing the best we can.

I don’t think people realise how mentally exhausting it is to have to explain to everyone how you feel, and how you are coping, every day of your life. The assumption that for all your years you haven’t heard any of the things they are explaining to you, and that you are on day 1 of your healing journey is absolutely absurd to me. Frankly, I shouldn’t even have to explain to you why your suggestions aren’t a good fit for me. Or worse, how I tried to do your suggestion and plummeted myself worse down the pipeline.

“Yeah but, if you just try to-”

No. Shut up. My illness and the current condition of my health is not an invitation to show off your extensive knowledge of health advice posts on WhatsApp, nor is it an opening for you to pitch your bizarre spiritual journey that is, apparently, the only way I’m going to see a change in my life. My declaration of my health status is for you to respect what I am going through, and be supportive through my extremely personal journey to a happy balance between coping and progress. Sharing my pain with you is difficult enough as is, don’t make me regret it.

What I hope for in a friend

I have to note, that I am not saying that an able-bodied person can’t ever give me advice and that we can’t ever talk about what I could be doing to help my health situation. It’s not so much the advice, as it is assuming you know more about my illness than I do. A friend that has a two-way conversation with me, exploring options and listening to my experiences is always greeted with gratitude. We problem-solve together, and I never have to feel like it is somehow my fault I have an unexplained chronic-illness. They help me to progress in my own time, and support me through every step of the journey, based on what I am ready to take on. They understand that everything is difficult for me and that making even simple changes in my lifestyle takes immense kinds of effort and that I can’t be expected to do it all at once.

The bottom line is they care about me and my personal journey, not just their own self-proclaimed expertise in medicine and health.