Steve from England

Learn Something Today Whilst I do have an invisible illness this is not just about me. So many people have an illness we can't see and most of them share the same experiences in their lives. Short lived sympathy, well meant encouragement and disbelief. This is true for so many ... including me I think we have all done it, we've been either sick or healthy ourselves then seen someone who isn't working, perhaps claiming financial support and we're like .... yeah right, looks like they're ill! No one intends to be mean about it but, we just don't think. I know I have been guilty of it myself and I should know better and, this is why ... My Mum! Mum had chronic arthritis. I had many stern comments to say to people on trains who left her standing whilst they sat in the disabled seat but mum was in constant agonising pain every day for the last 20 years or so of her life. I have lived knowing what invisible illness looks like so, yes, I should know better. One of the ...

Dear Mum When I had nightmares is was about losing you. I'd wake up sweating after you had fallen off a cliff or just stopped breathing reading your book (Catherine Cookson most likely). Sometimes, because of those dreams I'd just sit there watching you making sure you were still breathing. You were my world, my anchor, my rock. I was growing up, I know I wasn't being myself, I know that how I appeared to be was what Dad expected me to be, all the men in the family were real men, top of their sports. They were not like me, I was not like them. I wanted to have that conversation about how I felt different but, I had time, I knew I had time and, well, I was a long while off grown up yet and, things might change, isn't that what they say? You never really know for sure, not whilst you are young? Mum, I should have told you, I should have got to know you as an adult and not kept myself your little boy. It was my safe space, my sanctuary to come home to you, things a...