By: Naomi Gingold

Some disabilities are more obvious than others. Many are immediately apparent, especially if someone relies on a wheelchair or cane. But others — known as “invisible” disabilities — are not. People who live with them face particular challenges in the workplace and in their communities.

Carly Medosch, 33, seems like any other young professional in the Washington, D.C. area — busy, with a light laugh and a quick smile. She doesn’t look sick. But she has suffered from Crohn’s disease, an inflammatory bowel condition, since she was 13. There have been times, she says, when she’s “been laying on the floor in the bathroom, kind of thinking, ‘Am I going to die? Should I jump out in front of traffic so that I can die?’ Because you’re just in so much pain.”

More recently, she was diagnosed with fibromyalgia, a condition that leaves her in a state of full-body chronic pain and intense fatigue.

For Medosch and others who struggle with an invisible disability, occasional hospital stays and surgeries are not the hard part. Mundane, everyday activities can be more difficult.

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