CreActiv

Leslie Rose grew up in a family of invisible illnesses. While she is the only person on her mother’s side without asthma, she has battled severe allergies and digestive issues for much of her life. 

In 2014, she was misdiagnosed with anxiety disorder. A diagnosis she believed as her husband had just been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. After three years of trying to yoga and meditate the pain and fatigue away, Leslie was hit with neuropathy so bad that she could not walk on her own for a full week. This began a yearlong second opinion process. During which, Leslie began counseling sessions to cope with the unknown chronic pain and other associated symptoms, which was later revealed to be fibromyalgia. All of this has always been met with a huge lack of compassion, because rarely does she “look sick.”

Being so closely touched by a variety of invisible illnesses and having been misdiagnosed, shining light on invisible illnesses of all kinds became a passion project for Leslie. This is why she started an online support group for women of color suffering with chronic pain. But this wouldn’t be enough – she had to find a way to help other people understand invisible illnesses. At the top of September 2017, it was a simple Facebook post that asked people to comment with a selfie if they have invisible illnesses. Some 100 plus photos later, Leslie knew the project in her head was much bigger than she could imagine.