Your body has an autopilot. Mine occasionally goes rogue.

October is Dysautonomia Awareness Month, which means I’m going to talk about something a whole lot of people live with and a whole lot of other people have never even heard of.

Dysautonomia.

Your body has an autopilot.

Your autonomic nervous system handles all the boring background shit you probably don’t think about because you’re not supposed to have to think about it.

Heart rate.
Blood pressure.
Body temperature.
Digestion.
Sweating.
All the little systems quietly keeping the meat suit operational while you go about your day.

Dysautonomia is an umbrella term for disorders involving that autonomic nervous system.

Basically: the autopilot starts freelancing.

And that can look like:

• Dizziness or lightheadedness
• A racing heart or palpitations
• Fainting or feeling like you’re about to faint
• Extreme fatigue
• Exercise intolerance
• Brain fog
• Headaches
• Nausea and other GI issues
• Heat intolerance
• Abnormal sweating
• Blood-pressure changes

Not everyone has the same symptoms. Not everyone faints. And symptoms can change from one day—or one hour—to the next.

Here’s the part I really want people to understand:

Someone can look completely fine while their body is working VERY fucking hard to accomplish something as ambitious as… standing.

A shower can require a recovery period.

Heat can turn an otherwise functional human into someone who needs to become horizontal immediately.

Walking across a parking lot can suddenly feel like exercise.

Brain fog can make an objectively intelligent person stare at a perfectly ordinary sentence like it has personally betrayed them.

Plans sometimes get canceled because the body has apparently reviewed the itinerary and declined to participate.

And then, because dealing with all of that apparently wasn’t enough, people with invisible illnesses get to hear:

“But you look fine.”

Yep.

That’s the invisible part.

So here’s your Dysautonomia Awareness Month public service announcement:

If someone tells you they need to sit down, lie down, get out of the heat, drink something, eat something, take a break, cancel plans, use a mobility aid, or otherwise do something that seems unnecessary to you...

BELIEVE THEM.

You do not need to completely understand what their nervous system is doing.

Frankly, sometimes their nervous system doesn’t seem to understand what it’s doing either.

Ask what they need.
Make room.
Be flexible.
Don’t make them justify an accommodation.
And please don’t make someone perform being sick enough before you decide they deserve support.

Invisible illness is still illness.

And if you’re the person reading this while sitting on the floor, carrying enough electrolytes to survive a small apocalypse, strategically planning your next shower, or wondering why standing upright has once again become an extreme sport:

I see you.

You’re not required to make your illness visible enough to make somebody else comfortable believing you.

— Ruby