#Iamnotadisease

I've been having an amusing time over the past hour looking through people's twitter descriptions. Lots of occupations, even more hobbies, a whole city worth of twitter spouses and children, and a collection of instantly favourite phrases.

What I don't get is the diseases.

I have my illnesses, chronic and acute, physical and mental, but I tend to think of them as annoyances that you just get on with (after the suitable complaint period.) I'm giving a free pass to the cancer survivors who then go on to list the loves of their lives; I count that as perspective.

There's one twitterer I came across whose description comprised of one acute physical disease, one chronic physical disease (a very popular book-of-the-month type at that) and then one mental illness. That was it.

I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. How can a person define everything about themself in such terms? I could get on board with celebrating some aspects maybe; the community spirit of lice and their incredible feats of reproduction say, or the way the little patch of eczema near my elbow makes the rest of my skin look unblemished. But the entirety of your description?

It reminded me of a tweet that I saw earlier in the year. A hashtag was viralling around the place gaining supporters, as they do. It was nice and empowering and non-threatening all at the same time. This tweet was mixed up in the middle of it. I thought it was irony. Now I'm not so sure.

"As an OCD sufferer #Iamnotmymentalillness"

Yeah. Good on you love.