Tag: National Invisible Chronic Illness Awareness Week

Chronic Migraine, Community, Coping, Friends & Family, Reader Stories, Society

Invisible Illness Awareness Week

Kerrie Smyres

For National Invisible Chronic Illness Awareness Week this week, its sponsors at Rest Ministries and volunteers have created and compiled a tremendous array of resources for those of us with invisible illnesses.

  • Presentations from the virtual conference cover topics from relationships to work to identity. Several presentations remain this week, but all of them are archived for you to listen to whenever you need a boost.
  • The website has a large collection of articles on a wide range of issues that folks with invisible illnesses — and those who love us — confront every day, like the difficulties of explaining an illness to friends, how to respond when someone is insensitive, and how to help people with invisible illness.
  • The statistics and stories section has some shocking information about chronic illness. Like that nearly half of Americans have a chronic illness, 96% of which are invisible, and the divorce rate among the chronically ill is higher than 75%.

Poke around the site for a bit. I bet you’ll learn something new that will help living with an invisible illness a little easier.

Community, Coping

Invisible Illness: Strength Through the Struggle

Kerrie Smyres

Guest Post by How to Cope With Pain Blogger

The writer of this post blogs anonymously as she is a practicing psychiatrist. Her practice focuses mostly on patients with chronic pain. Having chronic pain herself, her practice and blog reflect a deep understanding of its challenges. –Kerrie

As we all know, there are many challenges and difficulties when living with an invisible illness. However, the experience can also allow wonderful attributes such as patience, strength, humility, trust and perseverance to flourish. Encouraging these virtues –- also invisible –– to grow within us is a way to take advantage of adversity

Patience is needed to wait for healing, to respect your own and others’ limitations, and to learn to live with chronic illness.

Strength is needed to carry the burden of illness, to be stoic for others when necessary, and to stand up for yourself.


Illness can teach us humility, that we have limits, that we do get sick, and that we need to learn to ask for help.

Illness can teach us trust, trusting others, trusting ourselves, and trusting in our spiritual beliefs.

Perseverance is needed to stick with treatments, to tolerate pain, and to live fully despite illness.


Thanks to Simon Davison (patience) and Lollie-Pop (strength) for the photographs at Flickr.

Community, Coping, Resources, Society

National Invisible Chronic Illness Awareness Week

Kerrie Smyres

National Invisible Chronic Illness Awareness Week, which begins today, lets people know that an illness doesn’t have to be seen to be real. Check out these statistics from Rest Ministries, the sponsor of the week.

  • Nearly 1 in 2 Americans (133 million) has a chronic condition
  • 96% of them live with an illness that is invisible. These people do not use a cane or any assistive device and may look perfectly healthy.
  • Sixty percent are between the ages of 18 and 64
  • The divorce rate among the chronically ill is over 75%
  • Depression is 15-20% higher for the chronically ill than for the average person
  • Various studies have reported that physical illness or uncontrollable physical pain are major factors in up to 70% of suicides and more than 50% of these suicidal patients were under 35 years of age

Rest Ministries is hosting an online conference about living with invisible illness. With four presentations one-hour sessions each day for five days, there’s a ton to learn. There are 20 workshops, including:

  • Going Back to School When You Have a Chronic Illness
  • Don’t Be Invisible: Workplace Success with Invisible Chronic Illness
  • Building a Business Vision While Honoring and Accommodating Your Health

Visit the National Invisible Chronic Illness Awareness Week website for articles and resources for living with an invisible illness.