If you were to look at me, you would have no idea that every time I take a step, a sharp pain goes down my left knee. You would have no idea that if I miss a dose of my medicine, my whole body just aches and brings me to tears.

Some things people living with chonic pain want you to know:

1. We work hard to look good and not in pain.
2. We often hear “But you don’t look sick!” The truth is that most of us work very hard to pass as "normal". We rest before going out and take our pain meds at the optimal time.
3. It's not in our heads!
4. Just because you can’t see it, it doesn’t mean it isn’t there. Our pursuit of healthcare is not driven by hypochondria or need for attention, it’s driven by physical discomfort.
5. We are not making a mountain out of a mole hill!
6. We are actually in more pain than you think we are in. Studies have shown that, generally speaking, people tend underestimate other people’s pain. This may be because chronic pain itself is difficult to imagine, especially if you have never experienced it firsthand.
7. No matter how long we've been suffering it still hurts.
8. Having pain for an extended period of time does not give us superpowers to feel it less. However, most people with chronic pain have learned overtime to exhibit less pain. So you can never really tell how much pain a person is in just by looking at them.
9. WE are not being lazy!
10. In fact, we often have to work twice as hard to accomplish the tasks that most people do easily.

Chronic Fatigue syndrome is not simply being “tired.” It’s a debilitating chronic illness with symptoms that affect sleep, concentration, pain and energy. More than one million Americans have the condition, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Here are some peoples descriptions of when Chronic Fatigue feels like:

"Chronic Fatigue is like looking through a foggy glass every day. Nothing ever seems real; it always seems dreamlike."

"Imagine plugging in a dead cell phone over night. When you awake, you expect it to be at 100 percent. But when you wake, it’s only at 9 percent and you have to try and function on that 9 percent. You’re never fully charged."

"A cross between the flu and being intoxicated 24/7."

Chronic Fatigue is a mystery condition. It’s only diagnosed through a process of elimination, and they don’t really know what it is or how to treat it. It could be the result of gut bacteria, some sort of post-viral fatigue, abnormal brainwaves during sleep or maybe just an extreme symptom of some other condition (e.g. depression). Sadly, after the lengthy process of determining that nothing appears to be wrong with you, there’s not a whole lot anyone can do to help you. There are currently no “gold-standard” treatments. The best remaining option is to learn to live around it.

Living with an invisible mental health condition is just as hard as living with any other visibile disability. The positive is not everyone knows what you are living with, the negative is the same. At times people may be confused, not understand, or question your validity because your issue is not visible.

People who suffer with Depression, Anxiety, Bipolar, Eating disorders, Schixophrenia, and Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder struggle many days just to get out of bed. That is just a small list of the many invisible mental health conditions that are invisible.

Those who have food allergies do not want to impose on others, and they learn early on that they must speak up to keep themselves safe and alive. Many people don’t comprehend that even ingesting a crumb of the wrong cookie could be fatal. Speaking up for yourself in public — which can be difficult for all of us — becomes essential for even young children with food allergies.