Sign-In
Cart
Invisible, Until I'm Not: Essays on Illness and Care
Hardcover
Biographies GeneralDeath & Dying
Publisher: Kathryn M. B. Johnson
Published: Jun 24 2026
Pages: 236
Weight: 1.07
Height: 0.69 Width: 6.00 Depth: 9.00
Language: English
When chronic illness makes you invisible, who sees your pain? Who validates your exhaustion? Who understands the daily work of survival?
For thirty-three years, Kathryn M. B. Johnson has lived inside an invisible body-shaped by fibromyalgia, degenerative disc disease, PTSD, caregiving, and the relentless question: How do I keep moving forward when my body refuses to cooperate?
Invisible, Until I'm Not is her answer.
This is not a book about overcoming chronic illness. It's a book about living truthfully inside it-about the grief that reshapes your future, the caregiving that drains what little energy remains, and the slow, unglamorous work of resilience when the world expects strength you cannot always give.
Through deeply personal essays, Kathryn explores:
✓ What it means to be chronically ill in a world that only believes in visible suffering
✓ How PTSD and physical pain intertwine-and how to untangle them
✓ The hidden cost of caregiving when you're already running on empty
✓ How faith, doubt, and endurance coexist in the same exhausted body
✓ The W.R.I.T.E. The Trauma journaling framework-a practical tool for processing pain when words feel impossible
This book is for you if:
You live with fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue, autoimmune disease, or invisible illness-and you're tired of being told you don't look sick
You're navigating PTSD, trauma recovery, or emotional pain that doesn't fit neatly into a diagnosis
You're a caregiver who's forgotten how to care for yourself
You need validation more than advice-someone who gets it, not someone who's trying to fix you
You're searching for reflective memoir that doesn't sugarcoat the hard parts or promise miraculous healing
What readers are saying:
This is the book I've been searching for-someone who finally understands what it's like to be invisible.
Kathryn writes with the kind of honesty that makes you feel less alone.
Not preachy. Not inspirational in a toxic-positivity way. Just real, raw, and deeply human.
Also from
Johnson, Kathryn M. B.
Also in
Biographies General
Bluesland: Portraits of Thirteen Major American Blues Masters
Pete Welding (ED.)
Toby Byron (ED.)
Hardcover
Karl Popper - The Formative Years, 1902 1945: Politics and Philosophy in Interwar Vienna
Hacohen, Malachi Haim
Hardcover
Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World's Most Dangerous Man
Trump, Mary L.
Hardcover
The Children of Athena: Greek Intellectuals in the Age of Rome: 150 Bc0-400 AD
Freeman, Charles
Hardcover
Make It a Double: From Wretched to Wondrous: Tales of One Woman's Lifelong Discovery of Whisky
Sackier, Shelley
Hardcover
The Code Breaker: Jennifer Doudna, Gene Editing, and the Future of the Human Race
Isaacson, Walter
Hardcover
Agents of Chaos: Thomas King Forçade, High Times, and the Paranoid End of the 1970s
Howe, Sean
Hardcover
An Enemy Such as This: Larry Casuse and the Fight for Native Liberation in One Family on Two Continents Over Three Centuries
Correia, David
Hardcover
Better Living Through Birding: Notes from a Black Man in the Natural World
Cooper, Christian
Hardcover
Florence Kelley and the Nation's Work: The Rise of Womens Political Culture, 1830-1900
Sklar, Kathryn Kish
Paperback
The Secret Life of the Savoy: Glamour and Intrigue at the World's Most Famous Hotel
Williams, Olivia
Paperback
The Devil's Diary: Alfred Rosenberg and the Stolen Secrets of the Third Reich
Wittman, Robert K.
Kinney, David
Paperback
The Badger: The Life of Bernard Hinault and the Legacy of French Cycling
Fotheringham, William
Paperback
Living with a Wild God: A Nonbeliever's Search for the Truth about Everything
Ehrenreich, Barbara
Paperback
The Butcher, the Embezzler, and the Fall Guy: A Family Memoir of Scandal and Greed in the Meat Industry
Cherington, Gretchen
Paperback
My Own Devices: True Stories from the Road on Music, Science, and Senseless Love
Dessa Wander
Hardcover
Nobody's Girl: A Memoir of Surviving Abuse and Fighting for Justice
Giuffre, Virginia Roberts
Hardcover
How to Be Okay When Nothing Is Okay: Tips and Tricks That Kept Me Alive, Happy, and Creative in Spite of Myself
Lawson, Jenny
Hardcover
A Walk in the Park: The True Story of a Spectacular Misadventure in the Grand Canyon
Fedarko, Kevin
Paperback
Dangerous, Dirty, Violent, and Young: A Fugitive Family in the Revolutionary Underground
Dohrn, Zayd Ayers
Hardcover
Catch the Devil: A True Story of Murder, Deception, and Injustice on the Gulf Coast
Colloff, Pamela
Hardcover