Making Tough Choices
“It's not hard to decide what you want your life to be about. What's hard, she said, is figuring out what you're willing to give up in order to do the things you really care about.”* ― Shauna Niequist, Bittersweet: Thoughts on Change, Grace, and Learning the Hard Way** A succinct description of the dilemma […]
Continue readingLooking for Scraps!
What do you do when your storms rage? Thankful invisibly disabled people can face a raging storm easier. You just got a new, unwelcome diagnosis. Your symptoms ratcheted way up beyond belief. Something went wrong in your family. You just couldn’t go to that special get-together. How about looking for a scrap? . . . […]
Continue readingListening Lightens Our Load – Can You Help?
Are you listening? Can you hear me? Do you even know I exist? Questions too many people ask in their stormy times. Let’s deal with one aspect of listening and caring: discovering the storm stories of physically challenged people. It only takes some time and compassion, but listening to invisibly disabled friends can make a BIG […]
Continue readingHow Fearful Are You? And What Can You Do About It?
What’s in your future - continuing losses, increasing disability, more pain? Will you lose your friends? Will your family still care? Can you keep working? Can you take care of your family? Many invisibly disabled people face additional fears because of their challenges. Do you have many fears, a few, or none?I came across this […]
Continue readingHow ingenious can you be?
What did you do before your limitations set in? Yard work, gardening, quilting, traveling, mechanic-ing? Why did you stop or curtail the activity? Too hard? Tiring? Too time consuming? Injury causing? Lack of help? See how the invisibly disabled adapt activities. You did it before? You can do it again – maybe! Reasons are as […]
Continue readingNavigating the Storms Celebrates One Year
March 2015 We launched Navigating the Storms to encourage and strengthen the invisibly disabled community and those who care about them. We also sought to offer knowledge, tips, and ideas for compassionate people who would like to help. March 2016 Navigating the Storms’ Anniversary. Forty years ago, when my disability experiences (slight though they were at […]
Continue reading6 Ways to Interact with Your Invisibly Disabled Friends
Ricky Buchanan explains much about interacting with invisibly disabled people. Open Letter To Those Without an Invisible Disability or Chronic Illness By Ricky Buchanan (used by permission) PART TWO Part One introduced us to areas that some Dwellers need Observers to understand. Can you take some time to examine how interacting with invisibly disabled people […]
Continue reading5 Areas Observers Need to Understand
Reading Ricky’s letter aids in learning about invisible disabilities. Open Letter To Those Without an Invisible Disability or Chronic Illness By Ricky Buchanan (used by permission) PART ONE Ricky wrote what I would like to have written for Observers. He seeks to help those without an invisible condition understand us Dwellers. Please read these observations […]
Continue readingEsther Collingwood: One Impact of Her Life
As I sit here mulling over the life of Esther Collingwood,I realize I didn’t really know her that well. Our primary connection in the last couple years was through Facebook. And yet, I feel such a keen sense of loss. Esther’s kindness to me One morning at Church, this friendly lady came up to me and […]
Continue readingCaregivers for Invisibly Disabled
Cautions and Kudos for the Caregivers for Invisibly Disabled (other caregivers, too) Are you a caregiver? Have a caregiver? Know a caregiver? Dwellers may have invisible disabilities, but their caregivers seem “invisible”, too. If people don’t see – or believe – the disabilities, how can they see the caregiver? Or that the caregiver himself […]
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