DON'T LIE TO ME!

Mark Twain (@MarkTwainUP) 8/5/12 3:21 PM When your friends begin to flatter you on how young you look, it's a sure sign you're getting old. #MarkTwain

When people see me, friends or family, and they haven't seen me in a while, they always say I look good. And I hate it. Because I know I don't. And so do they. We both know they are lying.

I hadn't showered in a couple days, I barely washed my face, I barely brushed my teeth, and I probably didn't even brush my hair, just threw it in a ponytail, and they still have the audacity to say I look good. 

Like the 35 pills I take a day are to help me look good!

Who cares how much pain I'm in or how sick of staying at home doing nothing I am, just so long as I look good, right? Wrong. 

Even if my state of being, my life, how I look, makes you feel uncomfortable, don't lie about how I look. Lie about anything else but that, ok? Please. 

The truth won't kill me, I promise. Get over yourselves and your imaginary feeling of awkwardness, because for me it isn't awkward, it is just life, and just speak the truth. You thinking it is awkward and lying to my face, my chubby broken out prednisone face, is the only thing making it awkward. Stills Disease is never awkward; it's just Stills Disease. 

Stop fooling yourself because that only makes it worse, and you are definitely not fooling me. 

You telling me the truth would be the least painful part of my day or my life. Actually, I think I would hug the next person who hadn't seen me in a while and said I looked like hell, because they would be the first to say the truth. It would be refreshing. It would feel good not being lied to. 

And if you won't tell the truth about how I seem, then you can't believe the truth either. Just admit it. Accept it. 

I am NOT who I was. Everything has changed. Everything! 

But don't pray for me to be healed because God already did that: spiritually. 

Let my body fade. Let it deteriorate. As long as my soul is saved. 

You want to pray for something? Pray God continues to restore and save my soul and that I only desire His will, whatever it may be.

Pray you see my life for what it is and accept it. All of it: physically, mentally, emotionally, socially, economically, and most importantly, spiritually. 

If you can't admit to me, to my face, that I look like I'm struggling and then offer to help, then I will NEVER believe you understand me or this disease. It even makes me feel like you aren't even trying to. 

If you keep ignoring and avoiding my disease, and lying about its reality, then you are avoiding me, ignoring me, and lying to yourselves about who I am and what my life is really like. 

Seek truth. Speak truth. Please. 

Don't lie to yourselves.

Don't lie to me.