Feeling Better about Feeling Bad

The Sick People’s Movement is about removing the stigma, shame, anxiety, and sense of not being enough that I have often felt throughout my life with chronic illness. In other words, I hope that sick people can feel better about feeling bad. To make this happen we must:

• Affirm people’s inherent value, regardless of their ability to be economically productive.

• Challenge and change cultural narratives about sickness and disability.

• Expect equal access to all aspects of life.

• Cultivate practices of self and relational reflection that deepen our capacity for connection to the human and non-human world around us.

• Value care labor monetarily and socially.

• Understand change is not only a linear march forward and find comfort with slowness, ambiguity, and not knowing.

• Assess progress through an ecological, systemic lens.