"Wearing the symptom suit was eye-opening, but I was glad I could step away from it and felt grateful I didn’t have to live through this experience every day." "I couldn’t imagine what it would be like waking up in the morning and not knowing if today was a good day, where I would be able to go about my life with only inconveniences, or a bad day, where getting out of bed was nigh-on impossible, all while living with constant strains and feelings niggling you with every move you make." the charity behind the initiative http://cwtch-pembrokeshire.wales/ eta: " Walk In My Shoes” is a campaign devised by member of CWTCH (Pembrokeshire) to inform people about chronic health conditions and the symptoms you can’t always see. Our members have reported to us that in order to fit in with friends, family and society in general, they most often try and hide their pain and symptoms so that it isn’t visible to everyone, they do this because it is a way of coping. Younger adults in particular have said that they have lost friends which is detrimental to their psychological well-being and doesn’t help them in their day-to day struggles. Last year we launched our professionally made #symptomsuit, so we could show people some of the symptoms our members live with on a day to day basis. Living with a chronic health condition is a struggle, which is made even more complicated when you have invisible symptoms or rather symptoms you can’t always see."
How great would it be if policy makers were made to wear the suit for a day. But to make the experience even more real, they should be induced with nausea, pain and cognitive impairment...while being told by physicians that they don't really feel sick, pain, fatigue, fogged but are just imagining it - with the subtext that the patient has weak character / mind and thus is not deserving of proper treatment and has little human value.