How to protest to the outside world when you can’t go outside…
May 12th is International Awareness Day for Chronic Immunological and Neurological Diseases (CIND). This awareness day was founded in 1992 by the late Thomas Hennessy Jr. The diseases included in CIND include Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME) Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS), Fibromyalgia (FM), Gulf War Syndrome (GWS), Lyme and Multiple Chemical Sensitivity (MCS).
The traditional route of protesting was gone due to Covid-19 but with crisis comes opportunity.
A campaign was developed that worked on 2 fronts.
1) A link was made between the short-term lockdown healthy people were experiencing due to Covid-19 and the long-term lockdown chronically ill people experience due to Fibromyalgia.
2) Patients were asked to provide age, trigger for illness and number of days of life being on hold. This created a serendipitous dialogue around how long people had been sick, sharing experiences and commonality between various triggers and responses from family and the medical community. There was an opportunity for people to reflect on their experience, grieve for the life they had to let go of and reassess where they were at with their treatment plan.
Having spent a month listening to patients it became clear that they were feeling isolated, neglected and unseen.
I created copy and graphics for facebook and twitter. Each patient who participated was given an individual graphic of their own experience, which they then shared on their own social media.
May 12th is dedicated to those with Fibro/ME who already know what isolation is like. We know only too well what it’s like to be forced to leave careers, relationships and the lives that we knew.
Ireland has been on lockdown for 60 days… but we’ve been on lockdown for far longer…
Female 48 – Fibro triggered by accident. 5011 days of life being on hold
Male 52 – Fibro triggered by bullying in workplace 7,300 days of life being on hold
Male 35 – Fibro triggered by chest infection that didn’t go away 2,924 days of life being on hold
Female 40 – Fibro triggered by difficult pregnancy 1,825 days of life being on hold
Female 21 – Fibro triggered by domestic violence 2,555 days of life being on hold
Female 70 – Fibro triggered by car accident 10,955 days of life being on hold
The difficulties and loss of living with fibromyalgia need to be unmasked…. we see you
Show you care for those that flare.
#Fibromyalgia #May12th #May12thawarenessday #chronicpain #Myalgicencephalomyelitis #ME #isolation
