Thread by @WeAreDisabled

Greetings! I'll be your disabled hostess for this week. I am grappling with #AnkylosingSpondylitis, #Hashimotos, #EhlersDanlos, and some yet to be discovered issues. I write, direct, and produce films and am figuring out how to do that while disabled. - @jenna_payne

The above pictures are from my wedding & after the last biggish live action short film I directed.

In 2015 & 2016, I felt an increasing amount of pain & began to struggle to digest food. In late 2016, it began to rain inside our apartment. Six months later my spine caught fire.

I worked my last film production job - a career I both loved b/c there's nothing like it & hated b/c the hours & stress were brutal - in the spring of 2017. Between that & the eventual Aspergillus that was discovered in my apt (& a blood test), I have been disabled ever since.

My life sort of fell apart for a while. Thankfully, my then boyfriend/now husband stuck with me (not without some bumps), but I basically was trapped in the apt that was making me sick for a year. I couldn't hold my up, couldn't go up or down stairs, and was desperate for help.

I took my diagnostic odyssey - 21 doctors & nearly 3 years before any meaningful Dx - and turned it into a script that I am pitching right now called HYSTERIA. Fingers crossed on a grant or two coming through soon!

Tired of being dismissed, chronically ill & undiagnosed patient Cassandra takes matters into her own hands, murders most of her doctors, and blows up an insurance company.

I've always been a genre gal, so I worked through a lot of therapy over the two years that I crafted this very personal story. I'm ashamed to admit that I thought if you were sick you just went to the doctor until I actually had a complex, chronic illness.

I might leave it at that for this evening? I'd love to talk more about invisible illnesses, diagnostic tips, film production, and more. Let me know what you want to hear about and thanks! - @jenna_payne