You Don’t Look Sick: What Living With an Autoimmune Disease Really Feels Like
“You don’t look sick.”
If you live with an autoimmune disease, you’ve probably heard that sentence more times than you can count.
And it’s meant to be reassuring.
But sometimes, it feels dismissive.
Because the truth is — you don’t have to look sick to be fighting a battle every single day.
One Day You’re Fine. The Next, You’re Not.
Autoimmune diseases are wild.
One day you wake up feeling normal. You’re productive. You’re present. You’re functioning.
The next day, it physically hurts to walk, breathe, or even just exist.
There’s no warning sign flashing.
No visible cast.
No dramatic symptom everyone can see.
Just inflammation. Pain. Exhaustion. And a body that is attacking itself.
That’s the reality of autoimmune disease.
What Lupus Looks Like For Me
When you have an autoimmune disease, your immune system — the thing that’s supposed to protect you — starts attacking healthy parts of your body.
In my case, lupus causes:
Swollen lymph nodes
Blood cells being destroyed faster than they can be made
Anemia
Multiple vitamin deficiencies
Full-body pain during flares
And sometimes, it feels like I’ve been hit by a truck overnight.
But from the outside?
I still “look fine.”
The Part People Don’t See
What people don’t see is the decision-making that happens every day.
Do I push through this pain?
Do I cancel plans?
Do I rest?
Will pushing too hard today cause a worse flare tomorrow?
Living with an invisible illness means constantly calculating your energy.
And then there’s treatment.
The medications that are supposed to help often come with long lists of side effects. At one point, one of my treatment options was a chemotherapy pill.
That’s the kind of decision you sit with quietly.
That’s the part people don’t see.
You Don’t Have To “Look Sick” To Be Sick
There is this expectation that if you’re truly struggling, it should show.
But autoimmune disease doesn’t always present in obvious ways.
Sometimes the strongest person in the room is fighting the hardest internal battle.
So if someone rests more than you think they “should”…
If they cancel plans…
If they don’t push through the way you would…
There might be more happening beneath the surface.
A little grace goes a long way.
To Anyone Fighting Something Invisible
If you’re living with an autoimmune disease or any invisible illness — I see you.
You are not lazy.
You are not dramatic.
You are not weak.
You are managing something most people will never fully understand.
And you don’t have to prove your pain to anyone.
Final Thoughts
Living with lupus has taught me that strength doesn’t always look loud.
Sometimes it looks like rest.
Sometimes it looks like boundaries.
Sometimes it looks like saying, “Not today.”
And that’s okay.
Invisible battles are still real battles.
💛 Miranda