Thanks, But No Thanks: Wild Advice We Didn’t Ask For

In this episode, Bri and Beka dive into the insensitive comments they've received from others, wild stories from our listeners, the importance of navigating conversations about chronic illness, and how to handle unsolicited advice. The conversation emphasizes the need for empathy and understanding, particularly for those living with invisible illnesses. 

We encourage you to get social with us on social media by liking our Facebook page, “Those Girls with Arthritis”, and following us on instagram @thosegirlswitharthritis. Send your questions to us on Instagram or to our email thosegirlswitharthrits@gmail.com.

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Disclaimer: Those Girls with Arthritis was created by two friends hoping to share their personal experiences and learn from others. We are not medical experts. Please contact your health professionals before making any choices to change your medical plan.

Chapters

• 4:36 Wild Unsolicited Advice
• 6:20 Unnecessary Callouts
• 10:06 Situations at Work
• 15:49 All the "Remedies"

Transcript

Brianna Ramos (00:01.4)
Hey guys, welcome back to those girls with arthritis. As always, this is Bri and I'm here with Beka.

Rebekah Nicola (00:09.392)
Hey y'all, it's Beka, Bri. So good to see your face, so good to hear your voice. I know it's been forever. Not really forever, but definitely hot minute. That's better, I like that, hot minute.

Brianna Ramos (00:19.959)
It's been a hot minute.

Yeah, it's been a half minute. I know we've been, we've just been so busy y'all and we've had plans to record a few times and just have been so burnt out with life and work and everything that we haven't, we just haven't added in us to record. But we're here now and we're excited to be talking with you guys and yeah.

Rebekah Nicola (00:26.832)
Hot! A minute.

Brianna Ramos (00:52.206)
We'll do highs and lows to start us off.

Rebekah Nicola (00:56.324)
Okay, yeah, sounds good. I'll go first. My low is always, am so busy. I have no time to do anything ever in my life. You will die at this. I literally have like 172 text messages I haven't read. I just looked. That is so not like me and it's stressing me out even more. So I feel like I've just been late, like responding to people.

Brianna Ramos (01:14.645)
no-

Rebekah Nicola (01:25.786)
but I feel like I'm on top of things at work. And I hate that, that I'm willing to like do everything to stay on track at work, but my personal life, I'm like, I'll respond in like five business days, not counting the weekend, you know? Just so busy, but my high is a lot of the stuff is busy, good stuff, like a lot of milestones. just...

Brianna Ramos (01:37.4)
Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Rebekah Nicola (01:53.784)
hit my three years at my job, so that was super exciting. And then I know my little sister's getting married literally in less than two weeks. So just wedding fever right now, you know, so super exciting. Just keep like casually taking off more days so I can, you know, regroup a little bit before the madness, but it'll be really fun. So very excited for that.

Brianna Ramos (02:09.21)
exciting.

Brianna Ramos (02:16.014)
Yeah.

Brianna Ramos (02:23.086)
So exciting. I know, I feel like there's just so many things going on right now and we don't talk to it so long, but I can't believe her wedding is in, what'd you say, less than two weeks? That's so crazy. That's so crazy, it came so fast. Okay, hello, I had like a little bit of a flare going on last like week or so. I've just been doing so much.

Rebekah Nicola (02:33.547)
Yeah, listen to weeks. So super exciting. I know I'm so excited.

Brianna Ramos (02:52.49)
And I haven't been giving myself enough time to rest. So I think it just kind of all boiled up and I had a flare. It started as like a fatigue flare where I just was so tired. Like I literally could not do anything. And now it's getting a little jointy. So we'll see. I have my regular rheumatology appointment tomorrow. I got labs done today.

So we'll see how those come back. I'm like nervous because the last time I got my labs done was when I had my perfect labs. And I feel as though they may not be perfect this time. And that's going to be disappointing, but we'll see.

Rebekah Nicola (03:37.305)
Don't put that pressure on yourself.

Brianna Ramos (03:39.758)
okay, I'll try.

Rebekah Nicola (03:47.287)
I know, I know. Did you hear me? I tried to give you some pump up advice, but I would be stressing the fuck out.

Brianna Ramos (03:56.45)
Yeah, it's tough, but highs. So like Beka, just like so many fun things. We had like one of my best friends weddings just like last weekend, two weeks, like a week and a half ago now up in New York. And that was super fun. I got to see a bunch of my friends and celebrate them. And it was a great time. And before that I was in Vegas for work, which was fun, but like

It was like, just like, it all was like, like, it all just piles up, you know? So I had just like one thing after another. And that's kind of what led to this, but.

Rebekah Nicola (04:29.283)
Mm-hmm.

Rebekah Nicola (04:33.625)
And that's how life goes. Like I'm literally getting on a plane the day after my sister's wedding, going to San Diego for a week for work. it just, everything always has to happen at the same exact time.

Brianna Ramos (04:36.835)
Yeah.

Brianna Ramos (04:42.744)
Yeah.

Yeah, it's so crazy, but you know, well.

We're surviving, maybe not thriving, but that's okay. So this week, we wanted to talk about some of the crazy things that we've heard from, listeners or other arthritis warriors have heard from, I say people in the wild, just like people on the streets, like people who aren't your family or your friends, like who have...

Rebekah Nicola (04:56.152)
I know.

Brianna Ramos (05:23.724)
Like just like no like real close connection to you. And definitely have no right to say any of these things to you about your arthritis. but we've heard some crazy things and sometimes I don't think people realize how much crazy, like how many crazy encounters we have as people living with arthritis, chronic illnesses, and air quotes, invisible illnesses. so we wanted to share some of those and thought I would just

I don't know, be fun to talk about, I guess.

Rebekah Nicola (05:59.458)
It definitely makes me feel way less insecure knowing that other people get wild shit said to them too. I hate that people can't just, know, if you don't have something nice to say, don't say it. And sometimes I do try to give people grace, like, okay, are they saying this because they truly do not know and they're curious or do they just.

Brianna Ramos (06:08.557)
Yeah.

No, literally.

Rebekah Nicola (06:26.125)
have no filter? Are they just trying to be an asshole? Like what? What's the motivation behind these comments?

Brianna Ramos (06:29.431)
Yeah.

Yeah, I know. It's hard. I think like sometimes some people like some of these comments I got from people, I'm like, where do they get that? Like the audacity, like where? It just blows my mind what some people will say out in the wild to people on the streets. And I think Beka and I both had experiences like this too. So we're going to like trickle that in a little bit.

to share with some of these examples because a lot of them are familiar to us. yeah, do you want to the first example?

Rebekah Nicola (07:10.265)
Sure. Okay, so for this first example, they said, someone asked me at work if I ever noticed my knees pop or click every time I walk, then proceeded to say they always knew it was me coming down the hallway by the sound when I would walk through the silent office.

Brianna Ramos (07:34.186)
This one was wild.

Rebekah Nicola (07:36.202)
Why old? I mean, I just, don't, I feel uncomfortable obviously for them and like, this hasn't necessarily happened to me before, but I know like, you know, I've noticed people like popping their necks or popping their fingers like in like meetings, et cetera. And like people kind of like stare and look at them. But if it's something that

you might not even notice that your knees pop because it's probably something that you've dealt with every day and you've gotten used to it, you know? And then someone like blatantly calling it out, like, were they trying to be funny? they trying, like, what, again, what is the like motivation into why you're saying this?

Brianna Ramos (08:11.426)
Yeah.

Brianna Ramos (08:21.024)
No.

I know and it was like it's one thing to like say like like I hear your knees popping but then like the second part of that saying like I always know when you're coming like

What? Wild. Wild. That's like different than like saying like, like I hear your shoes. Like I hear like your high heels or something in the hallway. like I think like that's like what I'm thinking in my head. Like they thought, but so different. And just like, if this person was like self-con... I don't know if they are, if they're like self-conscious of it or something like that. Like to say that is crazy.

Rebekah Nicola (08:38.787)
Yeah.

Rebekah Nicola (08:44.161)
Yeah

Rebekah Nicola (08:58.402)
Yeah.

Rebekah Nicola (09:03.767)
Or like, you know, not even knowing that your knees might make this noise, you know, when you're walking too. So not only, you know, do you feel uncomfortable, you're getting called out, but now it's something that you're gonna be like fixated on, like, trying make sure not to have that noise and stuff. And it's just like, I don't know, like why even make that comment? Like, you know, I just...

Brianna Ramos (09:17.943)
Yeah.

Rebekah Nicola (09:32.207)
Like thanks but no thanks with that energy I don't understand. so what.

Brianna Ramos (09:36.878)
It's crazy. It's like invisible illness, like you can't see it, but obviously this person, I guess, can hear it.

Rebekah Nicola (09:42.764)
Yeah.

Rebekah Nicola (09:46.586)
So how would you respond to someone if they were to say that to you? Do you have an answer? Did I put you on the spot? Sorry.

Brianna Ramos (09:54.126)
Girl.

No, I'm just so bad in these, like I had a situation like this happened recently, you know, and I just like, it throws you so off guard when it happens like this. And it's like not even like, and it's not like you're, it was like you're talking about it in a conversation and it came up. like, it's not like you can like elevator pitch them. I mean, I guess you could.

Rebekah Nicola (10:01.451)
Yeah, with these scenarios.

Rebekah Nicola (10:12.481)
Yeah, in the wild.

Rebekah Nicola (10:19.161)
Yeah.

Brianna Ramos (10:26.402)
But like at this point they were just freaking rude.

Rebekah Nicola (10:30.958)
Gah!

I feel like this scenario, obviously it seems like it's someone who's like a coworker. So someone who might be like an acquaintance or someone that you would see multiple times. So maybe it would be a good scenario to like say, well, I actually have X, Y, and Z and that's why they pop and click. you know, that comment you made was offensive or however, I feel like this scenario, it would make sense to like,

Brianna Ramos (10:44.558)
Yeah.

Rebekah Nicola (11:03.619)
dive in deeper, but if this was just a random stranger, like I don't know why I'm like imagining myself getting on an airplane and someone's like, hey, your knees are making a noise. Like I wouldn't really respond to them because it's like, why am I going to waste my energy on someone I will never see again in my life, you know, versus someone that you see in the office multiple days a week.

Brianna Ramos (11:18.637)
Yeah.

Brianna Ramos (11:25.58)
Right, yeah, no that's true. If it was someone like you're just seeing a lot.

Rebekah Nicola (11:31.053)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Rebekah Nicola (11:54.979)
I just was typing what they said. It was kind of bad grammar. You can reword it however you need to.

What did it say?

Rebekah Nicola (12:19.373)
What?

No, it's not recording.

It's still saying re-