Have you been searching for graphics to easily share with friends and family what Myalgic Encephalomyelitis is really like? Would you like to share relevant and informative infographics about ME? Find pictures that will give visual impact and get the point across without wasting your energy and time explaining? I'm so excited to introduce ME Awareness Pictures to you today! 

ME Awareness Pictures is a community resource where we can collect and share ME awareness pictures from all over the web. In this post I will tell you where you can find them and even how you can help to expand the collection. There is also an opportunity to be a featured ME warrior!

In this interview series we highlight various chronic illnesses and the amazing warriors who deal with them daily. My aim is to raise awareness as well as celebrate the many ways in which our fellow warriors overcome the limits illness and disability has placed on them.

Today I have the privilege of sharing Jodie's "A Day In My Life" interview here on Chronically Hopeful. Jodie has fought hard for years to get a diagnosis - a battle that many chronic illness warriors know all too well. She has a lovely blog where she writes about her health, her goals and victories on her road to recovery.

Have you ever been out in town and seen somebody who looks perfectly healthy get out of a car they had just parked in the spot for disabled people or seen somebody on a mobility scooter park outside and walk into the shop? If you are anything like I was before I fell ill, you might think these people are faking and milking the system for benefits and attention, but you'd be wrong, just like I was!

This week is Invisible Disabilities Week. An annual awareness campaign where patients and activists share their knowledge and experience of life with invisible illness and disability. In 2015 I became severely ill with an invisible chronic illness. Before that, I was very judgemental about others when it came to illness and disability.

I believed that if people ate healthy, did exercise and avoided cigarettes, drugs and alcohol that they'd not get sick and that wheelchairs were for people who couldn't walk - the real issue was that I was simply ignorant of the realities of chronic illness and invisible disabilities. I just didn't know any better.

Chronic illness has completely turned my life and the lives of my whole family upside down, restricting me to my house and often my bed for years, but if you ever saw me outside, you'd think I was still completely healthy because my condition doesn't cause any physical deformities and cannot be detected visually. I have an invisible disability.