What Kind of Sick Are You?

So I’ve been sick for a really long time now. Some parts of it I’ve been dealing with my whole adult life - but something changed in 2019.

Things became... more.

I kept having to take days off work for what I thought was the flu. I would wake up sore, headachy, exhausted, and dizzy. I’d stay home for a few days, then head back to teaching. And if you know teachers, you know, we hate staying home. It’s more work to prepare for a day off than to just show up. I didn’t want to be away. But I had no choice. I couldn’t function.

It kept happening—flu after flu. Some weeks I was okay, other times I felt awful just days after going back to work. My co-workers started to look at me a little funny. Like I was abusing the system. Because really, who could be sick that much?

I felt terrible for my students. I wanted to be there for them. So I made a decision: I would push through. I would ignore what was going on and go to work anyway.

But the more I worked, the harder it became to keep working. My body hurt. My brain wasn’t working like it should. I was forgetting things. Struggling to finish basic tasks. And then sometimes, I’d be totally fine again - laughing, learning, teaching, and loving what I did.

I remember one day, I woke up with sharp pain in my stomach and side. It was bad enough that I asked my husband to take me to the doctor, and she sent me straight to the hospital. While I was waiting to be admitted, a friend from work saw me there. She came over and said, “You look fine... why are you here?”

That sentence 'You look fine' has followed me ever since. Anyone with an invisible illness knows what I mean.

That day, the ER doctor said I had endometriosis and a large clot that was causing the pain. I was relieved. Finally, maybe this was the answer. I had surgery to have it removed. I told people about it, hoping someone would understand. But the response was... disappointing. A friend told me she’d had endometriosis too and was “just fine.”

The problem was, I wasn’t fine. Even after surgery, I still had headaches. I still felt heavy. I still felt wrong—except when I didn’t. Because sometimes, I felt okay. Sometimes I even felt pretty good.

Then one day, it all shifted again.

I had asked a student to go sit at the meeting table so we could chat. But I forgot. Completely. For half an hour, he sat there waiting while I taught an entire lesson. Finally, I heard a quiet voice say, “Can I come back now?” I was shaken.

Later that same day, I was outside with my students when the world suddenly spun. My vision blurred. My heart rate jumped to 150 bpm—and I was just standing still. I went to the office for help. The secretary took one look at me and called an ambulance.

I was so embarrassed. Especially when the hospital said nothing was wrong.

People wanted to know: What kind of sick are you?

I didn’t know. And that made me wonder—maybe I wasn’t really sick?

My doctor suggested time off. She thought maybe it was burnout, anxiety, depression. Maybe I just needed a break. I felt ashamed. Weak. I thought: Every teacher deals with stress. What kind of teacher needs to take time off for that?

I don't remember much from the first six months off. I know I did counselling, yoga, tried meditation, painted. But mostly, I sat. I tried to survive. I took antidepressants and anxiety meds. I learned what I could about burnout. I followed the advice. I tried to climb my way back to sanity—or what I thought was supposed to be sanity.

But I wasn’t getting better.

Headaches got worse whenever I tried to read. Yoga was hard because I never seemed to be able to get enough air. Counselling left me exhausted and sometimes feeling worse.

I kept doing what I was told would help… but I wasn’t improving.

That’s when the real doubt started to creep in.

Because when you live with a chronic illness that doesn’t show up on bloodwork or scans—when you look fine from the outside but feel terrible on the inside—it messes with your mind. You start wondering if you’re the problem.

You start asking yourself:

Am I imagining this?

Am I exaggerating?

What if I’m just lazy?

What if I’ve made it all up somehow and don’t even know it?

That question “Maybe I’m not really sick?” doesn’t come from nowhere.

It grows with every - 'Your test results look normal'. With each, 'That is normal for your age.' It grows with every raised eyebrows, with each 'Me too' from people who seem to be able to do so much more than you. It grows with each ' You look fine' . Or from the looks people give you when they don’t quite believe what you’re saying. It grows when one day you feel awful, and the next day you seem fine—even to yourself.

And so you start doubting what you feel. You feel it, but you doubt it. You live it, but you question if it’s real.

That’s the part no one tells you about chronic illness:

It doesn’t just attack your body.

It attacks your certainty.

This wasn’t just anxiety. This wasn’t just burnout. This wasn’t just depression.

Sure, some of those things showed up—but they weren’t the cause.

They were part of the fallout.

I still didn't have an answer to 'What Kind of Sick are You'

But the search wasn’t over.

This was only the beginning.