Chronically Ill Kat

A guest post by a fellow chronic illness creator Casey who can be found here.

Today‘s blog takeover is a by fellow chronic illness instagrammer and blogger who writes a lot about fibromyalgia. She has been running a campaign on instagram to showcase the person behind the chronic illness instagram account and I asked her to write a little something about her project. Please make sure to check out her blog and instagram if you get the chance. And at some point yours truly will be writing a piece over there too!

Those of us within the chronic illness community, often want to spread awareness of our conditions. There is such a great online community that talk about their everyday struggles, to show people what it’s truly like, and make sure others know that they aren’t alone. As someone who has a chronic illness it is great to find that online community. Talking to people online who understand your symptoms, understand how it can affect your mentally as well as physically, it really is amazing. The community, as a whole, is truly so amazing when it comes to finding those connections and making true friends.

Although we are such a great community who strive to help each other and bring awareness. Often we forget that we are more than the illnesses we are advocating about. We put so many photos up around our medication, doctor’s appointments, hospital stays. But we don’t simply put up a picture of our favourite Harry Potter figurine just because we like it. The illnesses we have seem to become the identity that we have online.

I am not in anyway saying we shouldn’t advocate for our illnesses, because it really is an amazing thing. In fact I find that these Instagram pages and YouTube channels really have helped me on my way to accepting my condition. I have also found that posting online myself and finding other people just like me, has really helped me heal. I feel so much less alone, and truly understood by others. Helping other people with their journey by posting online and bringing awareness has become a purpose in my life. It has become something that I absolutely love doing.

As I got more into creating my own business and specific pages around my illness, I wanted to advocate for people to see the person we are behind our conditions. I wanted to show people that we are just like them. We are real people who are posting online. We are people who have favourite movies and TV shows just like everyone else. There is a person behind the illness, and I wanted to put that at the forefront.

This is when I started #morethanourillness on my Instagram page. Although I share people’s conditions, I wanted to highlight them as a more rounded person. Posts are made up of the person’s name, their condition/s and any facts they would like to share about themselves. I am a person, just like everyone else. I just happen to be a person with a chronic illness. It does shape who I am, but it doesn’t define who I am.