In my last post, I highlighted a section of my speech “You Don’t Look Sick” at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario Canada. Today I’d like to talk about how incredibly encouraging the event was. The InvisAbilities club at Queen’s were able to get five-dozen people out to the event which, for the first meeting of a new club, is impressive.
Some of the great folks at Queen's University
That wasn’t the only thing that was impressive. I was also impressed by the number of people who attended the event who did NOT have an invisible illness themselves. Some were nursing and life sciences students, while some others were there to learn more about invisible illness to help friends and family members who suffer from these diseases. The fact that so may of them came out during a period when the pressure of exams is mounting and the crunch of time is on is a testament to the fact that these young people are truly interested in not only learning about, but also making a difference, in the way people view invisible illness.
Another impressive thing was the warmth of the feedback and communication I received from people afterwards. Unlike my generation, this is a generation that truly loves to connect and communicate with people. They were open about sharing their experiences and had no reservation about showing their gratitude.
Thinking back to my own years at university in the late 1980s – most people just didn’t want to talk about their illness at all. They certainly weren’t interested in organizing a club. I can’t think of anyone I knew who would have attended such a meeting in my day if they didn’t have an invisible illness. Of course, I was a journalism student. In addition to being run off our feet with assignments, we were a somewhat competitive and cynical bunch.
The thing that impressed me the most about my evening at Queen’s was Julie Harmgardt, the courageous and charming young woman who founded the InvisAbilities club. Her and I are doing much the same thing. However it took me more than 30 years of illness to realize that maybe I could make a difference. She was determined to make a difference almost immediately.
Meeting these wonderful young men and women gave me a lot of hope for the future. Don’t get me wrong, there is still a lot of work to do in changing attitudes about illness. Some of the group I talked to afterwards spoke about sick friends who felt compelled to hide their illness from teachers, prospective employers and even other students.
InvisAbilities 2010 Awareness Campaign
There’s still a stigma out there for many of us to deal with. A stigma that will likely last for the rest of my lifetime. But I do have hope that the courage and charm of this new generation will go a long way to changing the attitudes towards invisible illness.
