 Hello, my beautiful internet friends and welcome back to the Footless Show Show. Do we like that name? Is it too cheesy? I think it probably is. Today I wanted to talk about something that is near and dear to my heart. The idea of visible versus invisible illness and disability, but really more than that. Physical versus mental illness. And we're just gonna dive in and I don't know why I'm explaining that like it's some kind of new disclaimer. I usually just start talking at the camera so that's what we're gonna do here. I went to a conference this past weekend in Dallas, Texas. I went to the Rise Conference put on by Rachel Hollis. I was actually really proud of myself for going to it. First of all, I'm not a conference person but second of all, to like actually get on a plane without Brian. It was like my first time traveling without my husband with me and go down to Texas and like actually go to this conference with my eye walk with 8,000 people around me and have really long days was really cool. Like I felt super accomplished that I could do that. It was really hard. It was challenging, but I did it and I did not do it without help which is an important part of this video and in reflecting on this experience. Another thing that is just so clear to me is how different it is dealing with being physically disabled, being physically different and people being able to see that versus how life has been for many, many years in my head. And I think this is true for so many people watching this channel. I will so often get comments from people saying I'm not dealing with anything like what you're dealing with. You know, like losing a leg, that's way worse but I've been dealing with depression for a while now. And they talk about it like it's so much less. Like dealing with a very serious mental problem is less than a physical one. I'm just gonna talk about this from my experience. It's just my experience. Everyone is gonna have a different opinion on this based on their own life experience. But to me, I've had my fair share of physical problems, of physical illness and pain. I really have, you guys know that. But I've also had my fair share of dealing with mental illness and by far dealing with mental illness is so much harder for so many different reasons. And I think one reason why it is so much more challenging to try to fight is that other people can't see it, right? It's like an invisible war that you're fighting. Now when I went to this conference, people were happy, willing, ready, able to help me because they see that I'm missing a leg. They see that something looks different. And even though some people might be different about it or it might stare or whatever, like people came up to me and wanted to help. I had ushers who were like, hey, what can I get you as soon as I stood up to try to like, go get some water or whatever? You know, people want to be there. I was ushered to the start of a line when the line went like halfway around the building in the heat because people didn't want me standing outside without a leg in the heat. And so I got into the air conditioning building so much faster than everybody else, which was really, really nice of them. I physically look different. And so people want to take care of me. I think it's in human nature to like want to help when we see that someone's hurting, right? But it seems that that hasn't quite crossed over into mental illness. Now, if you don't know, I have dealt with PTSD for eight years now. Yeah, eight coming up on nine. And I am doing so much better than I was last year or the year before that or the year before that every year it gets better. But I'm just gonna say this. I'm just gonna make the statement so it's out there. PTSD is a bitch. If I could just kick in its front teeth, I would not do that to any person on the planet. But if PTSD was a person, I would punch it in its stupid face because it is miserable and a really difficult adversary to try to fight. And the same is true with depression and anxiety and panic attacks, all of which came along for the ride when it came to PTSD for me. I feel like I'm far enough in my amputation journey that I can say this. Dealing with all of that was so much harder, so much harder than dealing with this physical change than even for me dealing with physical pain. And I honestly wonder if one of the reasons for that is how people respond. When you would talk to people, people's first response, when you say that you've experienced trauma and you have PTSD or you're having a legitimate panic attack and you are losing your crap or fill in the blank with mental illness, mental condition, it seems that the gut reaction for many people isn't quite yet. How can I help? And an educated how can I help? I'm not blaming people for that. I'm not expecting people to know about conditions that aren't their own. But with that being said, I can tell you from personal experience that mental illness is not taken nearly as seriously as physical illness. I kind of feel like I get like a pass because I'm missing a leg for whatever I need to pass for where when I was actively fighting PTSD every day, which was a much harder battle, a much more dangerous one in my opinion, no such thing existed. There were absolutely no passes. When people see that something is physically wrong, they wanna help. But when something is mentally wrong, you have to put it into words. You have to explain it. Oftentimes you have to convince someone, which I think is one of the cruelest things of all time, not coming from the person who like wants to understand, but just the fact that a person who is mentally ill or struggling has to use their limited energy to try to explain what is happening to a person who is standing across the table from them. For the people in my life who wanted to be there, who I will forever be grateful for, you know who you are, I still had to spend so much time educating them about like what was going on and how to respond and how to help for so many more people. It was a process of like trying to convince people about what was actually real and like, no, I actually am really messed up. I'm actually really not okay, you know? But I go to a conference missing a leg and people bend over backwards to make sure that whatever I need I have, which I'm so grateful for. Part of me wonders if it's like people don't want to get taken in by anything. And so if they don't see evidence that something is wrong, they question it. They want to like find proof of it. And the problem is, is that you shouldn't have to provide proof for a mental illness or an invisible illness because this definitely applies to chronic illnesses. Anything that can't be seen. One of the biggest problems with that though is that, you know, if someone doesn't want to be like taken in, if someone doesn't want to believe something without evidence, then they're asking you for that evidence, right? They're asking you, and I'll speak personally, they were like asking me to essentially prove the fact that I was dealing with a mental illness. But when someone starts questioning it, you start feeling crazy. And I promise you, I felt crazy anyway, right? I felt like I was losing my mind, like I was losing myself, like everything was upside down. And when people then look at you skeptically or quizzically or just don't get it or don't try to get it, it makes it a lot worse. It makes it a lot harder to deal with what you're already dealing with. And it's so much harder to talk about because it's normal and it's accepted to be like, I lost my leg and people will generally like, be fine to talk about that. They'll even ask questions about it. But it's really not socially acceptable to be like, hey, I have PTSD. People freeze up and they don't know what to do with that and I can tell you that from personal experience. Not that I ever like sprung that on anyone and not that I was ever like, hey, I have Joe and I have PTSD. Let's talk about that. I didn't do that. But I mean, when it came up, oftentimes people like freeze up. They don't know what to do. They might treat you weird or different because I don't know what that is and I'm not sure what to do with it. And it's easier. It is easier existing in society for me personally, just my experience being physically different than mentally different. I think that the world and the country that I live in specifically is starting to kind of catch up with this. But there's so much accommodation that exists for physical problem. The same level of accommodation does not exist if you are mentally unwell. Like no one has ever told me a week after losing my leg that I needed to just get over it. No one has ever told me that I was being over dramatic about losing my leg. No one has ever told me that I should just, you know, power through my leg being gone and walk on that leg anyways that doesn't exist anymore. But people say stuff like that about mental illness all the time. People say like, just get over it or just like, you know, be strong and like power through and like make it go away essentially as if that was a thing that people could really do. It was really interesting to me going to this conference and having such an incredible experience of people being so kind and so helpful. And there were aspects of that that, yeah, that were hard. It's hard to adjust to looking different. It's hard to adjust to being stared at. It's hard to adjust to the fact that people can now see, they can see that I'm different. They're like, hey, how can I help you? Cause you look different. But at its core that's beautiful because I know people just want to help but I cannot help but compare that to the rest of my life and how that is not the gut reaction that I've experienced. And I honestly do not blame individuals for that. I blame the way that our society works currently which I am trying to be a part of fixing. I think one of the best ways to put it is that now people see me or they know me and they realize that something's different. But when my mind was blown to pieces and they knew that, they didn't treat me like anything was different. They expected me to maybe be the same or at least that's what I felt. That was my perception of their actions and conversations and things that happen. And to be honest, it makes it so much easier dealing with being an amputee now that people are okay with me having a hard time sometimes that people are okay with the fact that my leg is actually gone, that people are okay with the fact that I feel different because I am different. But I was even more different once I dealt with PTSD, anxiety, depression, panic attacks and I wasn't afforded that same courtesy. So I guess what I'm saying in short is if I may say so, let's work to take anything that's invisible just as seriously as something that is visible when it comes to illness and disability because in my experience has been just as serious if not more serious. If someone comes to you and confides in you if they trust you enough to tell you that they are dealing with something in their mind or in their body that you can't see, believe them. In most cases, there's literally nothing for you to lose and there's a lot that you can do to help by simply believing someone and taking them seriously and understanding that something is different, that something is not quite the same anymore and that that person does need help. That person needs just as much help as if a limb was blown off, as if an open wound was sitting there because at least in my experience, invisible illnesses feel like open wounds just as much as physical wounds do. And also one last thing before we go, I just wanna say to everybody who watches this channel who deals with any kind of invisible illness, I see you, I believe you, I get it. I know it's hard, but you're not crazy and you don't have to justify yourself and though it's cliche to say now, it's just as true, it's okay not to be okay and again, I see you and I believe you. Thank you as always for listening guys, it's one of the greatest honors of my life to be able to chat with you guys, to be able to have conversations back and forth and I cannot wait to read your comments on this. Thank you so much all of my patrons over on Patreon for making all of this possible. I cannot thank you guys enough for all that you do for me. I'd love to hear about experiences you've had on either side of the fence or perceptions that you have about invisible illness or mental illness or disability. Now we know in the comments section down below, I can't wait to talk to you guys there. I love you and thinking of you and I will see you guys in the next video. Bye guys. Have her from the sky.