Heads Above The Water

A site for chronically ill and disabled young people

Welcome to Heads Above the Water! This website was created because I noticed a lack of information and advice online for teens and young people with chronic illnesses and disabilities.

Obviously, I'm not a health professional - just a disabled teenager who wants to help others like me - so this site won't have any medical advice and shouldn't be used for diagnosis. Instead the majority of the site will be sharing others' stories and what helped to make growing up with a chronic illness more manageable for them. There is advice on coping with schoolwork and exams, maintaining friendships, mobility aids, and just generally surviving as a disabled teenager.

Another thing which I feel is important to say: chronic illness and disability are very broad terms and include so many different conditions, so not all the advice on this website will be applicable to you. However, I have tried to get stories and advice from people with a wide variety of disabilities and chronic illnesses and a lot of the advice is so important regardless of your diagnosis, so hopefully there will be something you find useful!

If you find any misinformation or errors please let me know here (link will be added soon sorry).