“It’s not a realization that came to me easily or early on in my life as a chronic illness patient. It took me several years to finally recognize it and to see what had been in front of me all along.
Not until I marked my submission tracker with that most depressing word, “Declined,” did I make the connection. I realized that having a piece of writing declined and leaving a doctor’s appointment without any answers share many of the same emotions.”
Those paragraphs are taken from my personal essay, “Dismissals and Rejections — of Symptoms and Submissions,” recently published at Spoonie Authors Network. You can click here to read the essay in its entirety.
WendyKennar.com 
Thanks for your essay. As a writer with a roomful of rejection letters, I get it. I don’t suffer from UCTD, but I am often dismissed by society (particularly in Los Angeles) as ineffective and irrelevant because I am an old woman. Declined, dismissed – believe me, I get it.
LikeLike
Oh Betsy, thank you! Though I definitely don’t think of you as an “old woman.” Not at all. But it does show that though the specifics may vary, the emotions are universal.
LikeLike