Bella Hadid posted a series of Instagram Stories on June 25 that spread widely, a tearful selfie alongside a candid account of what a Lyme disease flare-up looks like when it takes over someone's body completely.
She is 29 years old and has been living with Lyme disease for 15 years, diagnosed at 14 when the illness also affected her mother Yolanda and brother Anwar.
"Haven't been able to shake off this flare up," she wrote over the crying selfie. "Slept 11 hours. Again. Nap everyday. Took every protocol from any and every doctor I've seen. Still nothing helping."
She said she was out of breath walking to her kitchen and that completing a shower without fainting was "a really big accomplishment."
The humor she used to describe it, diagnosing herself with twelve new things, her last two brain cells "beefing with each other," did not soften what was underneath it.
In a longer follow-up message she described the specific isolation that chronic illness creates.
"These episodes cause me severe isolation and depression, especially over long periods of time," she wrote. "You demand answers that no one can find. You fight. You finally have a few good days. You think you've found the right protocol, the right routine, the right treatment, and then a flare-up comes back and all of a sudden nothing feels certain again."
About ten hours later she returned to Instagram to reassure anyone she had worried. She wrote:
"This truly is an ebb and flow for me for the past 15 years. I just had an overwhelming amount of emotion over not being able to do the things my mind is capable of setting, but my body is not capable of doing. Every day is a new day and tomorrow I'm hoping, God willing, for a better one."
Her sister Gigi and mother Yolanda both expressed support publicly. The response from followers and fellow chronic illness patients was immediate and warm.