Illness does not wear a uniform. Often, it hides behind the brightest eyes and the most resilient spirit.

Tell me honestly, what do you think a sick person should look like? Frail? Pale? Unkempt? Slouched in a chair, staring solemnly into the middle distance? Do you expect someone with pulmonary disease to be breathless just walking a few steps or someone with cancer to walk slowly, carefully, and cautiously through life?

Now ask yourself, how do you react when someone doesn’t fit that image? Do you feel confused? Doubtful? Maybe you even think, “They don’t look that sick.”

I hear it often. “But you don’t look like a patient!” they say. Sometimes it’s a compliment. Often, it carries an undertone of disbelief. As though a person can’t possibly be fighting a life-threatening condition unless their struggle is visible to the naked eye.

But what does illness look like, really? Who gets to decide? It’s a quiet reminder that bias often lives within, shaping how we perceive others. It’s also about everyone who has ever had their suffering dismissed because they were smiling. “But you seem fine!” with just a little too much surprise, is about how we, as a society, still expect illness to come with a sad face and a bowed head.

It doesn’t.

People carry private pain in public silence. They dress up, show up, and carry on, not because they’re not in pain, but because that’s how they survive it. They have to go through yet another day. That’s how they reclaim agency in a world that often reduces the sick to a stereotype.

There’s something deeper at play here. Sadly, in our social and cultural setting, vulnerability is often stitched to weakness. Men must be stoic, women must be self-sacrificing, and families must keep a brave face. A cheerful cancer survivor or a smiling cardiac patient becomes an oddity—someone who........

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