 Hello there, my beautiful, lovely internet friends. Welcome back to Footless Joe, where I am still Joe and I am still missing a foot. And I wanted to share with you guys today some of the unexpected things that you might not think are way harder than losing a leg. And some of these you may actually have some experience in. So I lost my leg in October of 2018 and by early 2019, my story had sort of blown up very unexpectedly online where I suddenly had millions of views and thousands of comments talking about me, talking about my body and my life and one consistent theme that I noticed throughout was the fact that pretty much everybody believed me, right? Like pretty much everyone took it seriously that this is a substantial thing to deal with, that it's difficult, it's a huge life change mentally, emotionally, socially, physically. The vast majority of people were so accepting and compassionate and open to hearing about my life experience because they can easily recognize it's different from theirs. If I said my leg is really hurting today or I'm dealing with phantom pain or I mentally feel like I am losing my mind and falling apart because this is so hard to deal with, people didn't make me justify that. People didn't really question that because they're like, yeah, I guess, I mean, if I lost a leg, I don't know what I would do. So it's gotta be a hard thing. And there was a lot of compassion and a lot of understanding. And that was a breath of freaking fresh air because for so many years of my life for the past decade before that, I dealt with serious things that someone couldn't see from experiencing relational trauma and developing post-traumatic stress disorder, dealing with serious mental health issues, dealing with chronic everyday pain and a chronic illness that took almost two decades to diagnose. Throughout those experiences, the things that are invisible to other people's human eyes, so much of my time and energy was spent convincing other people that my reality was real. Like even with medical professionals, like having to convince doctors that pain was real or having to convince doctors that yes, I feel sick every single day and I don't know what's wrong and it's getting worse. Socially and relationally, if I was like, hey guys, I have a migraine. It's hitting really hard. I'm not gonna be able to make it. Generally people tried to be pretty understanding, but there were a lot of people who got understandably a little frustrated with me for being flaky because, oh, you just have a migraine, which we are going to be talking about a little bit more later. But when it was about my leg, like, hey guys, I'm really having difficulty walking or fan of pain is atrocious in this moment. I don't think I'm gonna make it. It was never any snark or like, oh, you should just get over it or is it even really that bad? Because again, it's gone. Other people can see it and thus there is at least the understanding that I am dealing with something and receiving so much validation, support and even kind of being put on a pedestal for going through this thing, for losing a limb. I got messages all the time of people being like, you know what, if I went through that, I would kill myself. You're amazing for choosing to stay alive, which is a conversation for another time. But that was so trippy to me because I'm like, yeah, this is really freaking hard. Let's not downplay that or state it as anything other than what it is, which is really difficult, overwhelming and exhausting, but I'm getting respect and praise and being called courageous and inspirational for dealing with this thing, which is hard, but honestly doesn't make the top three things in my life that have been really hard to get through. And the reason I think this is so important to talk about is because so many of the things that I've experienced that have been so much harder for me, things that I can just about guarantee you, people you know are probably dealing with. And yet so often if it is invisible to other people, it is not taken seriously. This has been very difficult, but in the grand scheme of things, I think largely because I have support, I am believed. It's something that I have the tools to be able to get through. I wanna put an asterisk on that statement and saying that everyone's experience with this is different. I'm just talking from my own life. The way that visible versus invisible, illnesses, disabilities, pain are treated as substantial. And I think one of the curses of dealing with something that's invisible, you have this much energy to be able to get through the day. And when you have to spend this much of it, justifying yourself, convincing other people your reality is real, dealing with snide comments are not really being taken seriously. For me anyways, that was so hard. A nightmare, you know? Even in my short 30 years here on the planet, I've seen positive changes take place when it comes to how society views mental health, mental illness, invisible illnesses and disabilities like chronic long-term illness, chronic migraine, chronic pain, but unfortunately I do think it's kind of human nature that we have a much easier time believing what we can see with our eyes. You know, it's much easier to believe something you can see than something someone tells you is real. Which is why though I spend so much of my time in the online world talking about, you know, amputation and what's different as an amputee because I think it's really important to educate people and I enjoy doing that, what I am most passionate about is talking about those things that are unseen. In the U.S. alone, there are almost 40 million people who are suffering with or dealing with migraine. 6% of the human population will deal with PTSD at some point in their life. Also close to 20% of the U.S. population deals with chronic pain, meaning you definitely know someone who this is probably a part of their life. And as someone who has been given the odd gift, which I normally wouldn't call it, of having a visible difference, I think it's really important to use this to say that like, yes, this is hard, but that feeling and that support, which makes difficult things so much easier to deal with, was almost non-existent in like society at large when I was dealing with things that people couldn't see. So two things, number one, if you are someone who is dealing with an invisible something, please know that I see you, I understand how difficult it is and I believe you. I don't think we get told that nearly enough, but your experience is real and valid. And secondly, if this isn't an experience that you've had, but you know someone who's dealing with something that you visually can't see, there's something with their body, their mind, whatever it might be, being treated with compassion as someone in that situation, a deal maker, having someone believe you, not having to waste energy justifying your experience. Oh my God, it's incredible. And I was blessed to find a lot of friends along this journey and family members who did believe me, courted me, cared about me, took me seriously, but so often that isn't the case and if you can be that person for someone in your life, I guarantee it will make a huge difference to them. Now, the thing that I want to talk about here at the end is specifically one thing I've dealt with for the majority of my adult life, which is chronic migraine. I think pretty much everyone is familiar with what migraines are, like they're really bad headaches, people have to leave work sometimes if they get them, but if you've never experienced them, they are a nightmare and I get them two to three days a week at a minimum. When they hit, they are completely debilitating. I can't sometimes put words together. I can't think straight. I cannot work. I cannot carry on a conversation. I am in substantial pain and the only thing I can do is lay down and take some meds, drink some Caterade, sometimes some caffeine because that can help and wait for it to pass. The reason I'm bringing this up today is because today is Giffing Tuesday. That's right, there's a call to action in this video but I hope you'll hear me out here. Over 40 million people just in the United States deal with migraine and yet it is woefully underfunded in research. Funding for migraine research specifically is 2% of federal funding for neurodegenerative diseases and less than 1% of the funding for chronic diseases. Yet this is something that is so debilitating and disabling to so many people across the world. The Association of Migraine Disorders has already funded two research projects this year but they have a goal to fund three more in the upcoming months and together you and I can make this possible by donating today on Giving Tuesday to the Research Is Hope campaign. Extra cool is that when you give, it kind of counts for double because in the month of November, every dollar up to $5,000 given to the Association of Migraine Disorders will be matched by their sponsor, Cove, which you may have heard of before. It is the leading online medical clinic dedicated specifically to those dealing with migraines and headaches. So if you like I, we're planning this year and participating in Giving Tuesday, I highly recommend going to migrainedisorders.org slash donate and giving whatever you feel led or what you're capable of doing to help fund migraine research. At the end of the day, it has been my experience that the support that I've gotten for having a visible disability has really made going through such a massive and difficult life change so much easier and the lack of understanding, the lack of compassion and the difficulty that those of us who deal with invisible things face makes it so much harder. The belief, the understanding piece of listening to those in your life who are dealing with chronic issues that you can't see can make such a difference. So I really appreciate you hearing me out in this video today. I will also say this is just a shameless plug. The next video that I'm doing on this channel is a little bit different. I'm bringing a friend in. We have a ton of fun. I'm finishing the editing today and it is something related to prosthetics that I have never before done. So be on the lookout for that in the next couple of days. If you don't already have subscription notifications on which site is it on? It's on this side. I hit that notification bell if you feel like it. Make sure to check out the researchers hope campaign. I put all links down below and most importantly to you watching this video right now. Thank you for spending a few minutes out of your day here with me today and my snoring dog. I wonder how much of that is gonna come through on the audio. I'm very sorry if it's extensive. You could be anywhere else in the world doing anything else and you chose to hang out with me and us for a few minutes and that means the world to me. So thank you. I really appreciate it. My lovely audience. I love you guys. I'm thinking of you and I will see you in the next video. Mwah, bye guys. So what's actually worse than losing a leg is trying to deal with three dogs all making noise when you are trying to film a YouTube video. Where is the respect? Not here. Have her from the sky.