Living with chronic illness means living under pressure—and it’s coming at you from all directions.

Chronic illness can profoundly reshape the future you once imagined and the one you still long for.

I’ve lost count of how many times, as a clinician, I’ve seen “stress” blamed for physical symptoms, only to later find that postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS), Ehlers-Danlos syndrome/hypermobility spectrum disorder (EDS/HSD) and/or mast cell activation syndrome (MCAS) is the actual cause.

Countless people living with chronic illness are experiencing real symptoms but haven’t yet received a diagnosis. “Normal” test results or the absence of a medical label doesn’t mean something isn’t wrong. The healthcare system doesn’t always catch every condition right away. 

May 12 is Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME) Awareness Day. ME is more than just feeling tired—it’s a life-altering medical condition with no known cure that affects nearly every system in the body. 

Being dismissed repeatedly can silence even the loudest voices. Medical trauma isn’t just what happens to someone’s body—it’s being told they’re wrong, even when they know their body best. Sometimes, it’s in the small, quiet ways the system fails to listen.

Chronic illness may require you to budget your energy carefully—go over your limit, and your body sends the bill in the form of exhaustion, pain, or flare-ups.

Grief in chronic illness doesn’t just happen once—it recycles. People with chronic conditions often grieve the same losses over and over. How to offer support to someone experiencing grief from chronic illness: