Never judge a book by its cover. We all hear this phrase over and over again throughout our lives. Usually, it's used when we make negative assumptions about someone based on their outward appearance, and they take us by surprise with their positive internal attributes. I'm here to tell you that this isn't the only way it works.
Years of social media use have conditioned us to do the exact opposite of what we have been taught early on. We see the glamorized, filtered photos, and jump to the conclusion that the person behind the screen has a perfect life. We live in an era where the best moments are captured and shared, but the darkest parts of our lives are kept hidden away. Hidden due to fears of judgment, misunderstanding, non-acceptance, or simply just to have some sort of escape from our own reality.
Imagine the following:
As you aimlessly scroll through your feed you come across an image of a young woman. She is in her mid-twenties, beautiful, with a lean athletic build and a dimpled smile plastered across her face. You click on her profile, and her history of posts lets you know that she is educated, has a successful career, and is surrounded by people she loves. As you watch her through the images that she willingly shares, you automatically assume that her life is without blemish. You may even feel a pang of envy, jealous of how lucky she is to have such a perfect life.
What you see is not always what you get.
While that young woman is seemingly living the life of your dreams through the deceptive lens of social media, in reality she has suffered multiple short-term and long-term health issues. Her childhood differed greatly from that of her peers, as many of her days were spent visiting various doctors instead of playing with dolls. While you and I were playing outside, she was having tube after tube of blood taken in hopes of finding an answer for her painful start to life. In 1998, at the age of three, she was officially bound to a life of never-ending pain, as her diagnosis of an autoimmune disorder known as rheumatoid arthritis (RA) was officially confirmed.
You hear "arthritis", and might think that this just means joint pain, and that it only happens to older people. That couldn't be further from the truth. It's a disease that does not discriminate against the young, and it certainly doesn't contain itself to just one body part. In rheumatoid arthritis, your immune system begins to mistakenly attack the tissues in your own body. Typically, the younger you are at the time of diagnosis, the more complicated your symptoms can get. Your body begins to shut down due to those attacked areas becoming inflamed. Simple movements of your hands and legs that should be effortless feel as if you are doing them while moving through quicksand. Movements that were once graceful are now robotic because you can barely tolerate the pain. The inflammation continues to spread through every part of your body like wild fire, affecting not only your motion, but also things like your vision, and mental clarity. Dealing with this debilitating disease requires constant treatment and vigilance, and it takes both time and trial-and-error to find the best regimen. Pill after pill, appointment after appointment-all to have some sort of normalcy in life because your own body decided to fail you.
That was only the beginning.
As the young woman got older, the exacerbations of the disease began forcing her into a repetitive and tedious daily routine. Every morning she would remain in bed while calculating in what exact way to move her body to ensure that it wouldn't lock up for the rest of the day. Her trip to the bathroom consisted of a constant detour to the cabinet containing her daily breakfast: 600mg of Ibuprofen. Years of fighting the disease had led to stomach issues due to the combined effects of RA itself and the sheer amount of medications she had to take. These same issues also made weight gain impossible; she was trapped in a numbers game as she constantly tracked the scale. While others commented on her thin frame with words of envy like "you're so lucky", or even out of arrogance telling her she should eat more, what they didn't see was the force feeding, the continued dietary supplements, and the constant flow of tears leaving her eyes as she began most mornings hugging the toilet because she couldn't keep the food down.
Struggling to remember things she read and things she said was becoming more and more the new norm. Her friends would laugh and joke as she repeated the same stories for the third time. At first she was in disbelief as she couldn't recall telling them, but they would convince her by reciting her own stories without skipping a beat. Paying attention in class was close to impossible. As the fog took over her mind, any possibility of grasping a lesson on first try disappeared. Her days were spent continuously feeling like a burden on everyone around her. She had to repeatedly ask what was said in class because she simply couldn't process it at the same pace as everyone else. Studying was no easier. Each session started with another dose of 600mg of pain reliever and then went into re-reading the same text a handful of times in order to grasp even a sliver of information. As she watched her friends around her lead normal lives, she chose to not be "that friend" that was constantly complaining about her struggles, and rather chose to suffer in silence.
The years continued in much of the same way. Periods of heavy flare-ups caused her to miss out on even some of the simplest aspects of life, but those were followed by periods that allowed her to feel somewhat normal. The trajectory of these types of diseases is like a roller coaster, with constant ups and downs. When she would go through an"OK" phase and the pain was tolerable, even those closest to her seemed to forget all of the times she had suffered. It's as if her pain wasn't real just because it wasn't visible at all times. Because of this, even the times when the physical aspects were controlled, her emotional pain would continue to be a ten out of ten. Eventually, after much back and forth in treatment regimens, she was able to back off some of the maintenance treatments. The moment her doctor told her she would have to take less pills, would be able to do less blood tests, and would be able to have less frequent appointments is forever engrained in her memory. While her closest friends cherished the memory of a perfect prom experience from their high school years, she cherished the memory of that day as introducing a glimmer of hope for a normal life.
Over the next decade, the pain continued to be controlled well enough to avoid the major setbacks she encountered during her childhood. Today, her battle is now far from over. She is living with something that has no cure. It's a 'til death do us part type of illness. She is stuck with flare-ups for the rest of her life. Simple things like weather changes, standing too long, or any activity that would put continuous pressure onto one spot would cause her body to re-attack itself. The flare-ups are strong enough to make even the most peaceful of tasks like sleep become a nightmare. The physical pain at times does not even begin to compare to the continuous emotional and mental toll of diseases like this. On top of dealing with the excruciating physical effects as this invisible enemy attacked her body, her mental health quickly followed suit with a rapid decline. Being the lone soldier in a never-ending battle makes each blow that much harder to bear. Being the lone soldier in a never-ending battle makes the thought of waiving the white flag and giving into the enemy that much more appealing, no matter the casualties. She expressed that some days the thought of not waking up was more appealing than the reality that awaited her.
Due to the debilitating disease she was living with, she was able to obtain a handicap-parking permit. It improved her life so much to just have this simple thing that lessened the physical burden during everyday tasks that could not be avoided. However, instead of allowing room for compassion and understanding, outsiders filled their hearts and minds to the brim with judgment because of this.
This, my friends, is where people like us come into play.
Instead of truly seeing this young woman, who is barely able to climb out of her car, they choose to judge her by her "cover" of youth, and assume she is abusing the system. If they stopped to actually perceive reality, they would see her struggle, and see the pain evident on her face. Without hesitation, complete strangers have verbally attacked her, often accusing her of using her grandmother's permit, assuming she is only pretending to need it. As they spew their wrongful hate, they are demonizing and belittling someone who has been fighting a battle their entire life. Remember, this is the same battle that causes her to hate herself. The judgmental words of people like this make her question the severity of her struggle, even though she has lived through years of suffering, years of crying herself to sleep because the pain was that intolerable, and years of being unable to complete even the simplest of tasks because her illness got in the way. She has lived through years of wishing for a permanent sleep because she was exhausted of fighting for a normal life.
Yes-the words and accusations we make are that impactful. Impactful enough to make someone question everything they have ever known or felt about themselves.
Embarrassment, sadness, and anger-these emotions add an additional heavy weight on her shoulders all because of someone else. As if her own problems were not enough, another person has added a layer. They have unknowingly told her that her story is a lie, and her suffering is non-existent. However, even a stranger's judging eyes and harsh words cannot compare to a friend's dismissal. One particular event that is burned into her memory is an evening where she was taking care of a longtime friend who had one too many drinks. As she drove her home to ensure she arrived safely, her friend looked at her parking tag and said, "I don't think you necessarily deserve the permit, and honestly, it's kind of crazy that they just give it to anyone." This was someone that had watched her suffer, witnessed her struggle, but suddenly none of the time they had spent together seemed to matter. Not even the fact that she was taking care of her in a time of need.
Most of us crave understanding from others. We don't want to be judged. We want someone to walk in our shoes and to understand our story. We need empathy. Yet, most of us don't give others this same benefit. Every single person you encounter is going through something that you might not be able to see. Whether it is physical pain, mental exhaustion, emotional distress, or simply just a bad day, they are the ones that know their full story. Not you. Not me. Only them. When you interact with someone that is silently suffering, you may think they are disinterested, bored, or even bitchy. The reality is they're anxious, confused, and a lot of times severely depressed. We easily continue to sit and mindlessly scroll through social media from the safety of our own couch. We view people through the minuscule moments of their life that they allow us to see, and we come to whatever conclusion effortlessly fits the agenda of our own perception-even if it is far from the truth.
My friends, I think we've lost our way. We live in a time where distance is easy and closeness takes effort. Why would anyone try and understand our story? Why would anyone show compassion? Why would anyone stop and think before they judge?
I'll tell you why: we need to. We, as humans, owe each other that much.
We owe each other the ability to listen with understanding. We owe each other the acceptance of the fact that we have no right to tell someone how much or how little they feel. We owe each other the realization that we do not know the full story. We owe each other a judgment-free space. We owe each other compassion.
It's easy to assume; it takes zero thought and effort to jump to a conclusion based on a quick judgment. We have to stop choosing the easy way out. We have to think before we speak, think before we assume, and think before we accuse. Had that stranger stopped long enough to truly pay attention to this young woman's eyes, her suffering would have been evident. Had her friend truly listened with the intent to understand, those comments would have never left her mouth. No one chooses to be bound to a disease for the rest of his or her life. No one chooses to go to the doctor for more tests over going to their favorite concert. No one chooses to spend five extra hours on a task that should only take two. No one chooses hardship. No one chooses to suffer.
But, we do choose to judge.
We choose to jump to the ending of the book by simply glancing at the cover. We choose to assume we can fill in the hundreds of pages that are telling the story by simply reading the synopsis. We choose to think the worst of someone instead of the best. We choose the judgment before we even hear the case.
Whether we do it or not is completely up to us.
Moving forward has to be a collective effort. In order to love and accept others, we have to first love and accept ourselves-yes, even the worst parts of us. We have to go back to the time we were taught to not judge a book by its cover. We have to break away from the conditioning of only allowing the best parts of us to be plastered all over social media. Do I think those parts are fake? No, not necessarily, but I do think that they don't tell the entire story. We have to come together to realize that there is more to it. We have to realize that we can't learn everything about a person through one image, or one glance. We have to realize that we can't judge based off of our deceptive eyes.
We also have to realize that in order for people to know our full story, we can't continue to be silent about it in exchange for a few likes under the same filtered photo. The young woman whose story I share with you today has taken that initiative to help us move forward. Tired of her "cover" being the thing people choose to judge her on, she has decided to put it all out there. Not just through this telling of her story, but also by creating a page to follow her journey of self-acceptance, and self-healing. She discusses the way her chronic illness has tried to stand in the way of her goals time after time, and the way she fought to overcome every obstacle. Her description of this new page is that it's not pretty and it is far from the glamorized pictures you are used to scrolling past. My description of it is that it's beautiful because it is raw, it is real, and it is exactly what we all need to remember that we are all human. To remember that we need to take a step back, we need to accept each other and ourselves no matter the imperfections. We need to remember that we all have a story and that it's ok to tell it, even if it's not pretty.
We need to remember not to judge, but rather to listen, to understand, to show compassion.
We need to remember that we are the ones that put the human in humanity, and it is time we acted like it.
-A
*A huge thanks to Azra for sharing some of her most personal moments with me, and allowing me to help tell her story. Go follow her journey and get to know this amazing human @drazradoesthings on instagram.*