For people without invisible chronic disabilities, diagnosis of an issue is associated with a worsening - you only go to a doctor and get a diagnosis when you suddenly get substantially more sick and canât function anymore. This naturally results in people having a negative association with being told they have a disease.
If youâve lived with something your whole life, though, knowing you have a disease does not actually mean itâs worsened. It just means you know what to treat. Even if, for whatever reason, you donât want to see a doctor or get medication, knowing you have a particular issue can help you with little improvements to your life that can make a substantial difference.
If I know my pain sources from hypermobility, I can adjust the way I type and walk in order to ensure my joints move out of place less. If I have substantial back pain, I know it can be helped by core-strengthening exercises that help my back support my overly-loose spine. If I have a bad flare-up of issues with my hands, I know that taping or splinting them so that the joint is supported will help.
If I didnât have this diagnosis, Iâd have the same issues, just with no idea how to treat them. If⌠I dunno, hereâs an analogy:
The breakers in my house have been tripping a lot recently, and at first it was unclear what was causing them. You can live without knowing whatâs tripping the breakers, you just go turn them back on when thereâs an issue, itâs just really annoying.
We eventually figured out that itâs the dryer causing these issues, so we know not to run the dryer without turning off other appliances, and even we havenât yet made investment in solving the issue, we can at least mitigate the symptoms because weâve identified their source.
Denial would not have stopped the breakers from tripping, even if it would have stopped us from thinking specifically âwe need to buy a new dryerâ and making us technically not undergo that expense. Knowing what the issue is can only help you.
And now weâve also ordered a new dryer, and when that comes we will have fixed the source of the issue. This costs money! It costs effort and money to order a new dryer or go on medications or get physical therapy to properly support your joints. But if we genuinely could not afford that new dryer, or could not be bothered to spend the time buying it (this is where the analogy breaks down a little buying a drywr is easy), we still couldâve mitigated the symptoms by ebing careful about when weâd run it.
Refusing to investigate whether you have health issues can only make them worse. Knowing itâs the dryer that trips the breaker doesnât make the breaker trip more.
