A Dynamic Woman with RA

Thank you so much for the warm welcome Lene.

I did have that same problem for a very long time growing up with JRA in a low income family. I did reach out to the local Arthritis Foundation a few times but was never given the opportunity for youth camps and never really met anyone with JRA that looked like me or understood what I was going through. It was my senior year in college when I met three beautiful women with JRA and RA. I was 30 years old. One of those women was a school mate that I had a Women and Religion course with and she was in her later 20's and was newly diagnosed. She didn't look like me, damage from the JRA, being newly diagnosed. But we hit it off real quick. Then I was approached and given the opportunity to help coordinate the 1st ever Women with Disabilities talk at the University and met the other 2 great women. The first was a young woman in her very early 20's, if at all. One of my many duties included putting together a female student panel with young women with disabilities and found her. She had the damage (sorry, for lack of a better word) and looked like me. We hit it off! And then there was an Academic panel with 2 women with disabilities and I had the great honor of meeting Mary Felstiner, author and Professor at San Fransico State University. She also has RA and the damage that made me identify with her as well. And she put the conference and me in her book called, 'Out of Joint.' It was difficult for me but freeing as well. I had a great transformation and new that it was my journey forward to do something for women with disabilities and esp. with Arthritis. So now I am a Founding Board Member of Arthritis Introspective. We bring the young adults or adults in their prime together to share with others like us who need each other. I know this has been a very long reply and may sound like a commercial or sales pitch. But that is not what I am trying to do at all. I just want to acknowledge that there has been little support for you and I and that there is now. And of course I am very bias about my group:) Please visit our website and become a member, join the forums, connect, find a support system locally or start one and come to our national Gatherings if you can:) The website is http://www.arthritisintrospective.org

I do apologize again that this was so long.I do want you to feel that you have lots of potential friends all over the US. And I cried when I found this site. There are many of us around. I love it:) And I am so excited for the future.

I checked out the website and that looks very, very cool. I get a lot of questions from people looking for support groups in their area and until now, haven't been able to refer to them to a source where they can find something like that, so this was very helpful.

And it's funny what you said about finding somebody who looks like you. Poking around the new site, I found a picture of a woman who looks remarkably like me (even down to the haircut) and it... it's hard to describe, I suspect you know how I felt, but it almost made me cry. I'm so used to looking different and by now, I didn't really think I noticed it anymore or even that it bothered me, but seeing that picture made me feel at home. Thanks for that.