A is for Awareness

 - So it's become a bit of a 'thing' on blogs to do an 'A-Z' and though I can't promise to post a new letter everyday like you're supposed to, I like the idea so bare with me and eventually we'll get to 'Z'...though I have no idea yet what 'Z' stands for.-

Awareness - noun knowledge or perception of a situation or fact, concern about and well-informed interest in a particular situation or development. (google definitions 12/05/2014)

Today is international Fibromyalgia awareness day so it seems the perfect way to start this project. I'm not a crusader and I'm certainly not trying to be a martyr, I understand that the world isn't suddenly going to be fully informed invisible illness experts because of one day but it would be nice if people could even say the word 'fibromyalgia' and not look at your like you're utterly crazy. Awareness to me simply means having people accept that you are actually are physically ill (I'd just like to point out that I am definitely not saying that mental illness isn't 'real' either), that your body doesn't work the same way as a normal person even though on the surface it looks like it should.

Nowadays people accept Autism Spectrum Disorder as a disability, few people could name more than a handful or symptoms of ASD and even fewer could explain why or how it exists, yet people accept it. The general public 100% accept that ASD is a real illness with real symptoms that causes real problems, even though the medical world cannot find a reason for it nor can you see physical signs of it.

That is all I want for Fibromyalgia, I want to not have to fight with medical professionals to get them to believe me, I want for a glimmer of recognition to pass through peoples minds when I mention it and I massively want to not be treated like a delusional, lying, exaggerating, attention seeking hypochondriac.
I wouldn't even mind if people were misinformed and came out with some ridiculous theories and symptoms they believe you have, it would at least mean that someone is talking and thinking about it and it would start a conversation about Fibromyalgia and invisible illnesses in general.

So today 'A' is for awareness, a hope that one day in the near future people will believe that I am ill and not crazy.