When you have chronic illness, it becomes important to carefully self-evaluate and self-regulate. No one else can tell you if you should be resting or if you should be moving. No one else can really know if you are offering up excuses or if you are really having a bad pain day. But the truth is that it can be hard to tell the difference for ourselves at times. Why is this so hard? The answer comes down to self-honesty. Most of us tell ourselves lies without realizing that’s what we’re doing. We buy into the stereotypes or the stigma or the story about ourselves that we grew up with.