Social media has its downsides, but one of the good things is how much easier it is to bring awareness to things like invisible illnesses.

It has a great ability to bring home the reality that no matter what someone looks like on the outside, you never can tell what they’re dealing with behind closed doors.

OP has one of those diseases that can make getting around precarious and painful.

Alright so I (28F) have hEDS, which for those who don’t know is a connective tissue disorder. One of the many symptoms is frequent injuries, especially dislocations and subluxations.

I wear ankle braces whenever I plan to be on my feet for any period of time. I also dislocated my kneecap playing with a puppy on Saturday.

They were having a particularly rough day when they got to the pharmacy, and when they were confronted by a woman who claimed she should give up her seat for “older people” who might want it.

I was at the “pharmacy” and after placing my order, sat down in the only available chair with my leg extended for my knee to get some relief.

An “older” woman (40s or 50s) comes up to me and says that I am young and should let the older people there have the chair.

OP snapped because they were in pain and had to deal with crap like this far too often, but when they got weird looks from others, started to wonder whether or not they went too far.

I responded by pointing at my fully visible ankle brace since my knee brace was hidden by my pants and said something along the lines “Are you an idiot that thinks I wear these as a fashion statement?”.

She called me a b*%ch and sulked away. The other people there gave me weird looks. Was I too harsh?

They’ve come to the right place when it comes to judgement!

The top comment says it’s not a hard question, and that at the very least, the woman should have asked and not demanded.

This person says no one likes such assumptions being made.

And this person agrees that the woman really did have some serious gall.

Others agree that folks are getting more and more selfish every day.

This commenter, who knows the ropes, agrees that OP needs to take care of herself and her disease first.

Y’all I do not understand people.

Who just talks to strangers like this?