Firstly, I'd like to wish you all a very happy new year and
hope you've had a great start to 2014! Without trying to sound very cliché by
saying 'New year, new me (blog)' I would like this year to be a new start for
this blog...
I started this blog back in 2011 as a platform to reach out
to those with invisible disabilities & to educate others about existing
invisible conditions which most of us are unaware of.
When I was diagnosed with an incurable, inherited condition
called Ehlers Danlos syndrome (I'd never heard of it either) after years of
pain and numerous doctors visits, I hadn't received a correct diagnosis till
the age of 16. I couldn't understand how it could take so long to be diagnosed
with a condition that I was born with and why hadn't it been picked up sooner?
I then realised it was because EDS is one of many invisible conditions that
very little is known about.
Since starting this blog it has reached so many milestones,
reaching a global audience with almost 45,000 hits and it has been inspiring
for me to hear you share so many of your incredible stories and journeys about
the conditions that you face in day to day life yet often get unnoticed. I hold my hands up, I've promised numerous
times to upload posts far more regularly than I have (slaps wrist) but as usual
I got swept up in the business everyday life, starting back at uni, working etc
etc - but that's enough of my excuses.
So here is my new year's resolution, which you can help me
stick too... I will start off by posting on this blog every 2 weeks, on the 1st
and 3rd Friday of each month starting today before hopefully starting to upload
regular weekly posts. Baby steps.
The content I upload will not be all doom and gloom, instead
I want to share inspiring stories, useful websites, video links etc about all
kinds of invisible conditions. But to do this I need your help, for this blog
to reach its full potential I want to try and reach out to as many sufferers of
invisible conditions as possible to offer support by sharing helpful info with
each other and act as an extra online support network.
So could you please share this post with as many people as
possible as you never know who it might reach and help. Please can you email in
any info, stories, video links, organisation names, anything at all which you
think may be of use to others to hideandseekid@hotmail.co.uk so that I can
feature them in future posts.
Also let me know what kind of posts would you be interested
in reading about? Let me know either via email, twitter or FB. But for now I'll
stop rambling, I'll just say that I believe...
Together we can help make the invisible, visible.
Abi x
