The Positives of Using Facebook when you are Chronically ill.

As most of you would know by now I am an average (well almost ;) ) 16 year old who if you ask my mother, is a little bit too addicted to facebook. Although I don't use it in the way most 16 year olds do.
Over 50% of teenagers log into facebook more than twice a day. That is a lot of teenagers. Most mothers would worry that their daughter was chatting to boys, posting pictures they shouldn't be and getting into cyberbullying drama.
I am one of these 50% I do log into facebook more than twice a day. But let me tell you how I and other chronically ill patients use social media.

We use facebook to join support groups for people with the same illnesses as us to gain support and encouragement. We 'like' the support pages of our chronically ill friends to show them that we care, we love them and we are following their journey every step of the way. We 'vent' our frustrations on our support pages to get it out.. to show the reality of chronic illness so that people... at least a little bit... can see how we are feeling. Our support pages offer us so much. For me knowing that over 700 people are praying for me and thinking about me everyday is pretty amazing and I know that God is using this support page to enrich my life. It gives me encouragement, it helps me to know that I am not alone. We use facebook to interact with our 'real life' friends when we can not get out of the house and go places. Having a chance to talk to the people you care about and would love to hang out with in person but just can't is pretty amazing. We also meet people all over the world-- whether they have our illnesses or not. There are so many people all over the world that give me support and I have a personal realtionship with almost every single one of them- now that is pretty special. You wouldn't have been able to do that 50 years ago.

I truly believe that social media, when used in the right context by the right people is a blessing and it is so important to use it wisely and that is why I started Rachael's Journey.