Welcome to the Health Activist Writer’s Month Challenge brought together by WEGO Health – a social network for all health activists.  Again, I am participating in the annual Writer’s Month Challenge in which I will be writing about my health activism and health condition based upon prompts given.

Today’s prompt reads as follows:

Share something you learned from another Health Activist (that everyone should know!) 

For this particular prompt; I didn’t just want to single out just one health activist because I have learnt so much from every health activist and blogger whom I have had the pleasure to come into contact with either through the blog itself or my Twitter account.  Each of these amazing writers’ and health activists have so much knowledge to share to everyone.  Obviously, the main advantage is that through reading others’ blogs, I have not just learnt their personal stories and whom they are as people, but have also gained a breadth of knowledge on a variety of different conditions.

However, by doing this and particularly after taking part in the ’12-12-12 Project’ over at Abledis.com and reading all the amazing stories of all the fantastic, and inspiring stories, it dawned on me how similar the experiences are for everyone who are chronically ill.  Regardless of the diagnosis; there are common themes that seem to be universal for everyone battling chronic illness; examples of these include:

• Loneliness 
• Fatigue
• Pain
• Sadness/depression
• Frustration
• Lack of understanding from GP’s
• The same old responses by others’ such as “But you don’t look sick!”

Before starting on this blogging journey, I often felt lonely, isolated and down regarding my diagnosis and not finding anyone else with the same diagnosis.  However, this is  not the case anymore, as I found a large number of new friends; all with different conditions or disabilities.  Despite that, however, I have found we still have so much in common regardless of our diagnoses, and the support and camaraderie have been amazing and have gotten me through all the bad days; and the times where I have been low.  Christine Miserandino and the ‘Spoon Theory‘ is an excellent example, how a simple analogy can be used to describe the experiences of chronic illness for many – regardless of people’s diagnoses, the ‘Spoon Theory’ is one which everyone living with chronic illness can relate to.

So, if I was to share any advice to others who may have been recently diagnosed and are feeling low, and perhaps are lonely and isolated, then I would tell them don’t be – there are plenty of support online, on Facebook, or Twitter that can help regardless of gender, location, race, nationality or even diagnosis!  Seek out all ‘spoonies’ and gain support from some amazing and caring individuals!