Often times I feel like people with Chronic Illness get alienated more than others. When our health problems flare up and cause us more grief than usual I feel like people try to stay as far away from you as possible. I've noticed this a least among some of my friends that as I've gotten sicker throughout roughly the last year and a half, that people avoid me more. And sometimes people that don't even know the extent of how sick I really am tend to suddenly stop speaking to me when they do find out I'm sick. I know that yeah adult things happen and people don't talk as often, but this just feels different. I'm not entirely sure how to describe it exactly.

It's a loneliness that just hits you really hard. It's the kind of alone that makes you feel raw and empty. When all of my friends and I manage to go to the mall as a group and I need a wheelchair, most of them will stop speaking and associating with me until we're outside of the mall. I often feel like I embarrass them.

My family treats me different too and that hurts my self esteem just as badly. Being around my family requires that I act as normal as possible. But if we are at a family gathering and I'm having a bad day they shy away from me. Or treat me with the friendliness of someone holding a ticking bomb.

Somewhere deep down I wonder if regular people can tell that we're sick somehow. I wonder if there's some sort of sixth sense that tells them to shy away from us. Since starting nursing school and actually being in a classroom, instead of doing all my work from home has been a somewhat difficult transition for me. It's sensory overload a lot of the time. But I've honestly tried to be friendly with people but they look at me like I've grown a third eye.

Has anyone else felt alienated like this?

I'm not sure if it's me and I'm trying to hard to make friends or if people can really somehow pick the weak one out of the pack. My teachers know the extent of my disabilities because I need to wear my silver ring splints any time I'm doing something or I'll dislocate my thumbs. And they also know that I have hearing loss and that it's rather difficult for me to do manual blood pressures. One of my teachers is kind to me and lets me practice blood pressures on her instead of the doll. But another one of my teachers just doesn't like me at all and I don't know why. I haven't been rude, I haven't done anything wrong and frankly it bothers me. This would be the same teacher that I wrote a post about before.

I'm not sure if it's just me or if others feel like this. Please comment if you've had similar issues or if you have any advice, this is really weighing heavy on me.