Thread by @epballou

I don't know who needs to hear this.

But wearing a mask is actually really physically difficult for some people. To the point of impossibility for some, while others may be able to acclimate to one over weeks or months or wear one for a limited amount of time.

If wearing a mask is hard for you, if it fucking sucks and you hate it but you're doing it anyway because you understand the evidence and importance, you're not a bad person and you're not making it up or imagining it. I get it.

I'm a regular hiker who's been previously found to have a normal lung capacity (long story. long, boring, stupid story) and I have real trouble getting up a hill or multiple flights of stairs in one.

I am *so tired* of being photoset lectured by medical personnel...sitting in their office chairs, not wearing the kind of mask most of us have, not doing what most people are doing in one.

"What hills are you walking up??" someone actually asked me.

The ones in my neighborhood.

"What's so hard about it??"

I can't even wear makeup. Extrapolate.

Wearing a mask when around others is important and people who can do it should do it.

We don't have to pretend it's fun and easy for everyone or that no one has genuine physical difficulty doing so for that to be true.

(Anyway, the most tolerable ones I've found so far are the ones that Old Navy sells in a 5-pack, if anyone needs that information. I still have to tape an adjustable nose piece inside because glasses, though.)

"Well *I'm* autistic and *I* don't have any trouble!" doesn't fly when it comes to *anything else,* as it shouldn't. And it shouldn't here, either.

Denying it's an issue just means we're not helping people find more workable solutions.