healthmedicinet

People who have chronic illnesses frequently end up suffering alone in silence. Today, with the omnipresence of social media, many of us “scream” into the empty void of the world by posting these “invisible illness” or “silent epidemic” memes hoping that other people will see them and understand the unobservable suffering that we experience. At least as often as these memes effectively communicate such messages, they become an annoyance for the types of people who want their Facebook universes to be hubs of happy family photos, self-celebrating selfies and inconsequential spats about my team versus your team. Whether it’s a football team, a basketball team, or a political team, social media unquestionably has made these tribal affiliations even more polarizing. Everyone belongs to an affinity group. One of those affinity groups nowadays, for better or worse, is comprised of people who live with chronic illnesses.