Living with Invisible Disabilities

In this deeply personal episode of Just Call Jenna, host Jenna Williams opens an honest conversation about living with invisible disabilities—both physical and emotional—and the silent battles so many people carry every day. From chronic fatigue and anxiety to grief, trauma, and nervous system overload, Jenna explores how these struggles often go unseen by the outside world while profoundly shaping a person’s inner experience.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nbZ-MV05o_g

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Jenna breaks down the connection between trauma, neuroscience, and spirituality, explaining how the body stores stress and survival responses over time. She reframes symptoms not as personal failures, but as intelligent adaptations the mind and body developed in order to survive. Through compassionate insight, she reminds listeners that sensitivity is not weakness—it can become a source of wisdom, healing, and strength.

The episode also touches on grief, identity loss, self-compassion, and the importance of nervous system regulation, emotional processing, boundaries, and spiritual healing practices. With warmth and vulnerability, Jenna encourages listeners to honor their pain without shame and embrace healing as a journey of returning to wholeness rather than “fixing” themselves. This episode is a heartfelt reminder that even when suffering is invisible, no one is alone in it.

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Hi, welcome back.

I'm really talking today about living with invisible disabilities.

Mine are physical, but many of us have mental or emotional disabilities that prevent us accomplishing things or are barriers to getting things done. I think everyone's told, but you look fine. Everything looks fine. Well, that's not exactly accurate. That's things that you're carrying around. Those things, those disabilities, again, minor physical. I've had emotional ones too, but those days that you can't get up.

So this episode is really for anyone who wakes up exhausted, manages pain in silence, suffers massive anxieties. Feels grief and depression, suffers chronic fatigue, fights an illness that nobody can see. Has sensory overload, neurodivergence, whatever it is, but you still show up. I'm really proud of you. That is living with invisible disabilities. That is doing hard things that nobody can see.

Because we've all been told, but you look fine, but you're not. These are all conditions. They they won't show up. They're not on an x-ray. You're not walking around with a casting crutches. But there are battles in your nervous system. There are invisible disabilities.

This is not coming from a place of blame. It's likely you're blaming yourself. You're probably beating yourself up already. Why can't I be like normal? Why can't I be like this over here? Because you have an invisible disability. It could be emotional. It could be physical. It could be chronic fatigue that nobody sees. You could be fighting a cold and somebody's like, but you look fine.

Let me give you an example.

This weekend I went to park somewhere. I still have a handicap placard because yes, I had a brain injury. So I parked in the handicapped spot and this woman felt compelled to tell me, you can't park there.

Uh I'm handicapped. There's a placard in my car.

Oh, but you can't park there.

Um, who made you the parking police? You don't look handicapped.

Like she really wanted to go after me. And I just said, it's okay, I'm handicapped.

But that is an invisible disability. It's hard. It's embarrassing. Do you think it felt good to have this woman shouting at me in a parking lot? Yes, there were some people that looked. Now, she ended up looking like a complete fool. Because to her I looked fine. How dare I park in a handicapped spot with my handicapped placard and my brain injury? And the fact that I had a stroke and had to learn to walk again.

That was none of her business, but she felt compelled to tell me. Tell me that I shouldn't be parking there. How dare I? How dare I? How dare I what? Have a handicap? How dare I survive death? That's not her place.

But to anybody who's living with one of those invisible disabilities, they can't be seen. It's not on an x-ray. It's not in a cast. You're not on crutches. Um, she doesn't know my story that I had to get off a walker to be able to have that handicapped placard and be able to drive a car. That part of my journey has nothing to do with her.

I pray to God that she hears this and feels guilty for the way that she behaved, because that was just so out of line.

It's not coming from a place of blame. Invisible disabilities are not something to blame, but you're probably blaming yourself. You've probably been embarrassed by people like that woman, or somebody telling you, suck it up, buttercup, you look fine.

You are not your diagnosis. I want you to know from me, you are a soul having a human experience. You are a sensitive body, a sensitive soul in a very loud world. You carry wisdom that only suffering teaches. You are beautiful. You're not flawed.

So, from that woman's perspective, I was flawed. How dare I? She didn't see the handicap or the journey that I went through to be able to have this parking space, which was given to me so I don't have to walk a mile through a parking lot or come out confused and not be able to find my car so that I can drive safely on the road and get myself where I am. She's no part of that journey.

But how dare she argue with me about a handicapped space? How dare she? Because to her, I look fine. To her, there was no reason for me to be there.

These are invisible disabilities. It's literally any condition, mental or physical, that affects your energy, memory, your mind, your focus. Your immunity, your sleep, your emotional regulation, a bad breakup where you don't want to get out of bed. That could be an invisible disability for a moment. Um mine are going to be lifelong.

I can't cut vegetables anymore. As simple as that sounds, my hand shakes so bad that I can't hold something safely to chop with the other hand. Now, we find ways to work around it. They make those great little chopping boxes now where I can push down and chop my vegetables. Or sometimes I have to buy them at the grocery store pre-chopped for the extra two bucks it costs. Because it's not safe for me to hold a knife and cut that way.

These are invisible disabilities. But I look fine. That doesn't mean that I'm gonna go cut a carrot and lose a finger. Sometimes we have to be smart, but these are invisible invisible disabilities that we all carry around, some form of, some have it worse than others.

Sure, we live in a society that says push through, try harder, others have it worse. We become high-functioning sufferers.

So I've become a very high-functioning sufferer. I have to do crazy things that are workarounds. I have all my necklaces on magnets because I can't do the clasps in the back. So they magnet together. I have a chopping box to chop my vegetables, or I buy them pre-chopped. These are invisible disabilities.

Apparently I get yelled at when I try to park in a handicapped spot that I'm legally entitled to park in because I didn't look handicapped to her.

So I see you people out there. I feel for you all having to suck it up. Deal with really hard things, become a high functioning sufferer. This is what we go through. These are different things.

I wasn't aware of this. I just thought you push through, you try harder. That's what society tells us. Suck it up, buttercup. It's okay.

I mean I remember growing up, it's like, are you bleeding? Is it broken? Do you need a doctor? Then go outside. That's it. There was no softness, there was no care.

So in some ways that helped me in pushing through to the stroke, but I see a different side now living with these invisible disabilities. Things people don't see.

And it is embarrassing when somebody's like, oh, can't you just cut that? No, I can't even really safely cut a lemon and have to juice it. I have a tool for that at home. But I have to ask people's help with that. I can't open a ziplock bag. I can barely do buttons and zippers. Fine motor skills will be something I probably don't have for the rest of my life. I can't type with two hands.

There are workarounds. But I see you. I see you with your invisible disabilities. I see you with the things that nobody sees. Congratulations on showing up and doing hard things.

Um, when you're told to just push through, it sort of creates a spiritual shift inside of you. It's who am I versus who I pretend to be on the outside? That split is exhausting. So pretending to be okay when you're not, that's exhausting.

But you look fine, but my heart is breaking. I'm emotionally struggling. Um, I find it hard to read that statement. I find it hard to cognitively process. Those things are all real. That split is exhausting. It creates a split in you inside. Um, who am I? Versus who am I pretending to be?

It's somewhere I know everybody loves the term imposter syndrome, it's not really that. It's being who I have to be to fit in with the group versus who I really am. It's exhausting.

Your body remembers trauma. Not just what happened to you, but what happened inside of you when that happened. You had no way to process it, but your body stored it. So that can show up in the ways like me.

Great book out there is called The Body Keeps the Score. Guy did a study on all these people who had been through massively traumatic things and their bodies stored all that trauma and as they processed it, Physical Conditions Healed. Fascinating book. Highly recommended to anybody.

Neuroscience Studies show that trauma actually reshapes the amygdala, which is your fear center. It affects your hippocampus, which is your memory, and your vagus nerve, which is your safety system. It affects the immune system. Your body does keep the score. It goes into survival mode and doesn't come out.

So invisible disabilities aren't always physical things that we walk around with. And to anybody who has them, I have them, so I get it. I get that you have to be someone else to show up in society and be seen.

I cringe when people are like, oh, you look like you recovered well from a stroke. Well, I'm different. I returned to wholeness, but I don't know about recovery. Um, it's very different. It's it's wholeness. It's letting my body heal from those things.

I didn't realize how much pain my body stored in it from the shock of what I went through. I was so busy surviving, I didn't even notice the ripples through my body of pain and drama. It's a different thing. it is something that you can't even put words to. It's not just something you push through. It's something you live with, and those are very different things.

So when we're talking about neuroscience and the body and trauma, spiritually speaking, the soul learns to brace. It learns to armor, it learns to contract. Most of us learn to become hyper-vigilant. Invisible disabilities often arise in our bodies that learned it's not safe to relax.

So that doesn't always mean a physical disability like I might have. There are ones that I had to heal from and am still healing from. that have to do with the shock my body went through. The fact that spiritually speaking I had to brace.

Um I learned in the therapy that I went through from the stroke that my body was storing a lot of different things. I went through a lot of different traumas in my life. Not just a stroke, but there were many things I survived and I was hyper-vigilant. I was overachieving, overdoing. I didn't know how to sit still and be in peace. My nervous system was very dysregulated.

So the stroke, the tilt of the machine, was just too much for my body to bear. And there were places that are never going to come back.

So I see people with invisible disabilities. I see you. I feel for what you go through and I I'm proud of each and every one of you for showing up. down to the person who got their heart broken and feels like their world ended and had to go to work to the person who was Physically damaged like me from a stroke.

Uh, it doesn't matter what those things are. I see you, and I'm very proud of you for showing up and Not just looking fine, but working to be fine, to be whole, to return to who you are. You're fighting some internal battles.

I want you to accept you are here now, but I want you to accept that you can improve. And that doesn't mean everybody's definition of improving will be the same.

Let me reframe something. Your symptoms are not failures. They're adaptations. I'm not a failure because I can't chop a vegetable. I've made some adaptations to let me to continue to live life, but I'm not a failure.

If you saw a previous episode, when the first therapy session I got after my stroke I was trying to explain to the therapist how it was my fault, and she was like, How is this your fault?

Now there are things I may have known better that could have helped me avoid them. For example, Fatigue is usually your body begging for rest. So when you feel tired, your body is begging for rest. And not just a little tired, but like Fatigue, like I just can't go on. I have no motivation. That's your body begging for rest.

Anxiety is your body scanning for danger. Be aware. I'm turning into danger looking. I'm going into survival mode.

Pain is stored tension. Brain fog is overload. Autoimmunity is usually confused defense. This is not me. These are what doctors say. It's paying attention. Being aware, your body is talking to you. Listen to your body. It's going to tell you what you need.

It's not a failure. You need to adapt and reframe.

Okay, I'm fatigued. I'm exhausted. Like in my bones, in my soul, that kind of exhaustion that feels like I can't go on. Your body is begging to rest. Use some sick time from work. Take an extra day where you say no to everything. Your body is begging for rest.

If you're feeling massively anxious and everything feels like danger, you're overthinking, you're spiraling, you're scanning for danger, you're you're acting from fear. Start making yourself safe. Tell yourself, I'm safe. Everything is working out for me. And you will watch that change. Maybe not in a second instant, but These are how you're going to tell that Raz in your brain to reframe.

Invisible disabilities are going to be there. People can't see them. But you are responsible to take care of yourself. Listen to your body.

Your body basically learned if I stay alert, I survive. If I shut down, I survive. If I get sick, I rest. These are intelligent responses. They're not flaws. Your body and brain has learned from experience.

So You have to kind of understand. I need to listen to myself. I need to pay attention. Don't just do what society tells you. Push harder, but you look fine. If you're not fine, take care of yourself.

Many people with invisible disabilities, they share histories of emotional traumas. Many of us do. And it's not always big events like my stroke. A lot of times it's small wounds repeated, like being unseen, dismissed, where it's unsafe to show up. And they will manifest themselves in other ways.

You have to get yourself some help. You gotta start listening to yourself. You gotta start making those adaptations that stop making these invisible disabilities things that stand in your way. Don't let them prevent you.

Can you imagine how hard my life would be if I refused to be able to cut anything? Okay, yes, I ask people for help, I buy things pre cut, or I bought myself a little chopping box where I can just push down on the handle and makes those great little squares for me. You have to find the adaptations.

I'm not going to suddenly make my left hand work great. I keep working on it, but the chances of it Coming back. The reality is I'm probably never going to type with two hands again. I may never be able to do earrings without help. But that's okay. These are adaptations I find. I live with some invisible disabilities where other people can do it and I just physically can't. So find your adaptations. Reframe it.

Over time, all those little teeny tiny traumas will tell your nervous system you're out of whack. Your nervous system will eventually absorb it all and say, I'll carry these things for you. When you get dismissed or or it's not safe to show up or your body starts telling you those little symptoms. The first thing that happens is that your nervous system says, Don't worry, I'll carry this for you. And then your symptoms start to speak.

I'm not suggesting that you manifested your disability. You're not failing spiritually or at the game of life. You're just being given something that you have to adapt to. You have to make that change.

Suffering is not a moral issue, but from a spiritual lens, illness can be an initiation. It's a call inward to slow down. Many times in ancient traditions, they would call the starting of suffering an initiation. It was your initiation into healing. Shamanic practices did it all the time.

Your sensitivity is not a weakness. It's actually your superpower. I'm gonna need you to reframe, oh, I'm too sensitive. Maybe it's a joy that you're sensitive. Maybe that's actually your superpower and what is going to compel you to bring forth and create the most important things in the world.

Stop listening to society going, but you look fine, push through, try harder. No, find some adaptations that don't make you feel less. Listen to your body. And understand that suffering is not a moral issue. It's not good or bad. The universe is neutral, remember? But it is a call for you to pay attention, to be aware of that.

You know, if something hurts, pay attention to it. But also Remember, if you're fatigued, maybe you need to rest. Pay attention to your body. Might be begging for rest. If you're This way, anxiety, you're scanning for danger. What are you afraid of?

Pain is that stored tension in your body. You know, most of us get sore in the shoulders and necks because we live in a digital society where we're looking down all the time at our phones, at our computers. That is a place where Pain is being stored. Let it out. Get a massage. Go get a little stretching going on.

Here's an interesting one that still fascinates me to this day. They there was a guy who was Really focused on like stretching and the value in the body. Okay, he studied this big man I know. And it shocked me when he said You are supposed to stretch a minimum of the number of years you are. So for example, if you're 30, you should be stretching 30 minutes a day. If you're 40, 40 minutes a day. If you're 50, 50 minutes a day. That is how much stretching you should be giving your body.

So that pain, all those things stored in the body, those gentle movements, stretching Moving, those are part of the ways are you're gonna release that. It's not going to change that you have a disability that somebody can can't see, and it's not always Something physical. It could be mental. It could be emotional.

I see you. I understand how hard it is to get up and just move. To get up out of bed when you don't want to. To go to work when you're exhausted, to cook dinner for your family when you've had the worst day possible. to show up and cook dinner for your family when every bill collector has knocked on your door. I understand.

Those things can be disabling. They can cause anxiety. Your nervous system will carry it for you until your body starts speaking up. So I want you to just listen to your body. Give it rest, give it movement.

Back to that man I know who talked about stretching. If all you can do is find some time in your day, to stretch for the amount of years that you have in your life. Like I'm 47. I gotta stretch for 47 minutes a day. Quite honestly, I get there maybe one day a week. But it does remind me that daily I need to stretch, let the muscles move, right? Not just if I'm gonna go work out, but just Daily. My body needs that stretching so it can help release everything that's stored in my nervous system.

Calming the nervous system is something that's important and you kinda gotta do it to get your body in a place of where you can make those adaptations.

But I see you. I don't want you to think that I'm saying your suffering is not there. I'm not dismissing that you have things that hold you back from doing what the rest of everybody can do. Those disabilities can be physical, but more often than not, their mental and emotional disabilities were carrying around that nobody can see.

And you're told, you look fine, everything's fine, suck it up, buttercup, push through. No, honor yourself, listen to yourself. Figure out what you need to get help and make the adaptations that you need to. And don't let anybody tell you that you don't need help. If you need help, you do.

So if you're asking for help, there are some things that I think you're going to have to process to accept that sort of radical acceptance of these disabilities and where they're at. There is grief in losing your old energy, your old identity, your old plans. Grief that is rarely acknowledged. What it feels like to lose a piece of you. That's grief. It's it feels the same in your nervous system and your soul, like when you lose a family member. You're losing a piece of you.

You will grieve the person you were. I think you need to. One of the hardest things I had to do was grieve what I called Jenna 1.0. what the one of me was like before the stroke.

And sometimes I remember her well. I remember they made me do this crazy exercise that I thought back on doing and probably didn't put the effort in that they wanted me to. They actually had me write my obituary. Like what would it be like or what would I want people to say about me if I died? And I had survived it.

You would think that it they would want me to celebrate that survival, but it was part of the grieving process was to say like what was me and it sort of accept those things. So that was a very morbid exercise, but Maybe somebody has to do it if you've completely changed, but I think you need to grieve those pieces of yourself.

Some of those things that cause those Mental and emotional disabilities. Again, I'm not suggesting that you brought this on yourself or that some people don't have it worse than others. Society tells us to be grateful, move on. Okay, but grief is sacred.

I'm not the most religious person, but the Bible tells us Jesus wept. Buddha left everything behind. Rumi broke open. It's important to acknowledge grief.

Remember, I always say name my emotions that emotional processing, right? When I'm observing, I feel this emotion. This is what it feels like. Then I ask myself why I feel that way. I think you need to let yourself mourn. It's sacred. It's part of the healing process.

Healing is not fixing. It's not linear. Healing is about befriending. It's about acknowledging. It's about providing clarity. It's returning to wholeness. It's not Returning to what society tells you to be. There are places where you will have adaptations, your invisible disabilities. Those will happen. But there are some things that you can do to help with that.

So I'll tell you some of the ones that I use that I found very beneficial. Not textbooks, not somebody told me this. No, things that I found from actual practice that work while living in daily society because I think that's a lot of what I do is Not just what you're going to read in a book, but how can you implement this and still live in society in the hustle and bustle pace?

Those invisible disabilities, those things that people don't see. You look fine. Push through. No, I want you to really think about you need to honor yourself. You might have to find adaptations. Like for me, there are some things that are never gonna come back. Text-to-speech software, magnets on my necklaces. I don't wear a lot of pants that have buttons, they make elastic waists. So I think you find your adaptations, what makes your life easier. You don't have to make it harder on yourself, but there are a lot of responsibilities to living in society.

So again, here's some of the practices I use.

Nervous system regulation is one of the biggest things to healing, processing grief, and those things that live in the body. It might be breath work, like practicing your breathing, somatic therapies. Those are things like what they might call restorative yoga or those gentle stretching and movements. Those are all somatic things.

Another big one is healing your vagus nerve. You can do that with uh vagal toning. Those are sound therapies. I like a little device that's out there that's called Pulsetto. It's a little thing you put on your neck and it sends a little electric pulses a couple of times a day. And it helps reset that vagus nerve.

Remember, the nervous system calming is very important. I think that's I'm very regulated in my nervous system now. I can actually tell when my nerves are shot because my nervous system is so regulated that I know when it's out. Before I was just freaked out all the time and didn't even know there was such thing as settling the nervous system. But I think nervous system regulation is a huge part of it.

Emotional processing. That's naming your emotions. Things like journaling. Oh, by the way, I still have to do text-to-speech because I can't write. Uh my left hand shakes too bad.

Inner child healing. Those are some great ones that you can find. I recommend finding a professional who's been through that to do that because you're gonna find some repressed emotions that come out when you do.

Trauma therapies, psychology. I think every adult should have a therapist. And if you're not going to go to therapy, find somebody that you can have be accountable friend that will tell you the hard stuff and point out the things that you can't see.

Being aware of those things and then naming your emotions is the emotional processing you need to do. You need to release that stuff out of your body.

I think spiritual practices are important. I don't care if you want to pray, meditate. I like energy work. I like nature connections. I like to get out there and get calm and grounded and work with the energy in my body. Again, I like energy healing, but doesn't matter how you do it, some sort of spiritual practice to honor your higher self, your energetic body, however you want to do that.

And I think it's really important to have boundaries. You have to learn how to say no. You have to allow yourself to rest without guilt. Remember, if your body is You're fatigued, you're exhausted, your body's telling you to rest. Don't feel guilty about resting. Don't feel guilty about taking a sick day and sleeping all day if that's what you need. Don't feel guilty about taking a weekend day and going to lay in the grass for four hours. Whatever you want to do.

But boundaries is important. Resting without guilt. That was a really hard one for me, especially as a single mom and you know, having a job. I felt like I had to do it all. Resting was something I felt guilty for. I don't anymore. Those are boundaries.

Asking for help if you need it. It took me a long time to be able to ask somebody, like, hey, could you open this package for me? Those things were really weird at first and now I'm comfortable with them, but those boundaries are important to your healing.

Self-compassion. Speak kindly to yourself. Release shame. Honor your limits. Oh, I'm at my capacity right now. It's okay to say no and take no more on.

Healing will happen for you with safety and not force. Making yourself safe, regulating yourself. Nervous system regulation, emotional processing, your spiritual practices, boundaries, and self-compassion, those are how you heal.

It doesn't happen in a linear fashion. It doesn't happen if I do this, then this. No, that's not how healing works. Your body needs to let those things go.

The invisible disabilities might be mental, physical, or emotional, but you'll find your adaptations. Healing is your responsibility. There will be some things in those disabilities that you cannot heal from. You can only find the adaptations.

So, I would like to tell you, from my heart, from a place of quiet bravery, from my healing heart, I honor you. May you feel safe in yourself. May you feel the softness in your energy and may you feel held in your spirit. You are not invisible. You are amazing and you are stronger than you think.

I know all of us have the capacity to do more, be more, but you don't have to push yourself. You have to honor your limits. Healing happens when you're safe. Not when you're forced. Find your safety.

Until next time, remember, karma is real. Energy is contagious. Check your vibes.

I think I actually cried.