One of the hardest things about being ill with a poorly understood disease is that most people find what you’re going through incomprehensible—if they even believe you are going through it.

If neurasthenic sensitivity was the hallmark of nineteenth-century invalidism, a kind of hyperpersonalized concern with wellness is the hallmark of twenty-first-century invalidism—a quality that lets the rest of us dismiss the invalid as fussy or oversensitive while we get back to our frenetic, endlessly connected, productive lives.