Seeing red after reading "How Having a Disability Became Cool"

Has anybody read this article, "How Having a Disability Became Cool" https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/09/05/disability-became-cool/? We've been seriously seeing red here at SHN since it came out.

The article focuses a lot on POTS, postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome, a condition close to my heart because I live with it! Because it mostly affects young women, it's so casually dismissed as anxiety, depression, or sometimes doctors just call it "laziness." I'm sure that sounds very familiar you as a member of SHN.com! (Meanwhile, all I want is to live a normal life without seeing stars if I forget to wear my not-cute compression socks! Doesn't sound very "cool" to me...)

We know that ALL of you here at SHN.com so vulnerably and openly share your struggles online. And in doing so, you've created huge, robust communities of people who now better understand their symptoms & more confidently speak up at doctor's offices. Many of you wouldn't even HAVE diagnoses were it not for others sharing about their illnesses online. You'd still be in the doctor's dismissals pile of "faking it," or "just anxiety." And precisely BECAUSE of online "sickfluencers" (we call them Health Leaders!) you're now able to GET a diagnosis, find qualified healthcare providers, create a treatment plan, and live your life more confidently.

So if you could say anything to the author of "How Having a Disability Became Cool," what would you say? We want to compile all of your responses and write our own article about how integral Health Leaders really are, how they're changing people's lives every single day, and how they are the pillars of a medical system that so often fails those who come to it seeking help, only to receive dismissal and judgment.

Sound off below! 👂