I write about my health because… Reflect on why you write about your health for 15-20 minutes without stopping.

I began to write about my health as therapy. It felt good to get the feelings about how much my life had changed out my head and onto my blog. At first, I didn’t even know that it was blogging! I found a site on Yahoo and just wrote about whatever came to me. Soon, I realized that I was so negative because people would leave me comments to cheer me up. When I realized that I was such a downer, I wanted to lift up other people’s spirits. There were so many others who had it worse than me. I began to write about funny things that happened to me at a doctor’s office, at home, when I was out. I made fun of myself and ended up laughing at myself too. My negativity began to melt away in real life and my loved ones noticed. Doctors, nurses, patients complimented me for always smiling.

Now, others were coming to my blog to get a laugh or find some inspiration. Realizing that I was helping others made me feel better. My outlook changed. Soon, I had a real blog and then another (this one). I continued to share my positivity. Of course, some days, I had to vent.  Next, I began to research about illnesses and share that info. Comments were left because someone found my post about their rare illness, or because they learned something new.

When I heard about National Invisible Illness Awareness Week, I knew I had to get involved. That’s when my efforts at being a health advocate began in full force. Blogging was one of the best outlets because I could write a heartfelt post and then share it on Twitter, Facebook and forums. When my daughter was diagnosed in late 2010 with chronic health issues, my advocacy efforts increased.

Comments, tweets and other connections help me to continue. If I reach one person, I’ll continue to write about my health.

Why do you write about your health?

As usual I’m breaking the rules for GNO’s Happiness Headline challenge. I don’t want to write about what I’ve done this past week. Instead I’d like to share with you some of the RAOK I’ve experienced.

By doing this I hope to help other bloggers like me, those who have chronic illnesses or disabilities, realize that the blogging community can be kind and helpful. It’s been that way for me since I began blogging. People understand when I don’t understand directions they’ve given me the first time around. They get it when I ask if they are willing to help me one on one.

You see having Brain Fog can mess up my comprehension at times.  I can accomplish a lot but there’s times like you that I just plain forget or it sounds like someone’s speaking a foreign language. It’s OK though. I don’t use it as excuse to get over on people. I try my best to learn on my own first, but if I can’t do it, I ask for help.

This past week, I’ve had help from a blogger that I’ve known since this blog began. I won this blog, the domain name and year of hosting from a contest she held. From then on we’ve remained friends. Jenn, who posted about a free razor on her blog, Freebies Freebies Everywhere, made me to banner for a website I’m promoting. I asked and she made it in about a half an hour.

Robyn from Robyn’s Online World who is having a contest to win an 3 Holiday DVDs, has retweeted my contest posts on Twitter. We just recently “met” and for her to do that has been so helpful.

Laura Ashton, who I just “met” on Twitter this past week, replied to a question I had about RSS feeds.  It was late at night, yet she took the time to link up with me on Google Talk and answer some questions I had. Who would do that for a stranger? Laura  @LMashton did!

The power of the blogging community is strong. Sure there’s some drama every now and then. Just stay clear of it. I’ve learned my lesson about that.  But please don’t let feeling like you don’t know enough about blogging prevent you from starting.  Join Twitter, GNO and other groups. Get to know people and watch those acts of kindness, random or not come your way.

There are many more people that I’ve missed who have done something out of their way to help me. They may not even realize it. Thanks to all of you. Just know that when you do something kind, you may not know how much it means to the person you’re helping.

Thank You! You can follow me on Twitter and get to meet some of these awesome people too. I’m ConnieFoggles.