But You Look So Good

Living with a chronic health condition means your energy is precious. So what happens when the people around you leave you feeling drained, criticised, guilty, or emotionally exhausted? 

In this episode, psychologists Dr Sally Shaw and Seona Ilalio explore the impact of toxic relationships on our mental and physical health. From friends and family members to health professionals, they discuss how to recognise unhealthy relationship patterns, the questions to ask yourself when assessing a relationship, and practical strategies for setting boundaries and protecting your wellbeing.

 You'll learn how to identify the people who support your health, limit exposure to those who don't, and give yourself permission to prioritise your own needs. Because sometimes self-care means carefully choosing who gets access to your energy.

⁠⁠⁠Livology (Psychology - Private Practice)⁠⁠⁠

⁠⁠⁠MS: Get Your Head Around It! (Online Course)⁠⁠⁠

⁠But You’ll Be OK (Online Course)⁠

⁠Webinars and Resources⁠

If you need any support after listening to our podcast, you can contact Lifeline in Australia at 13 11 14, available 24/7. For support in other locations, please visit⁠ ⁠Befrienders Worldwide⁠⁠.

⁠⁠Instagram @butyoulooksogoodpodcast⁠⁠

Meet Lucy, a research psychologist from the UK living with Ehlers-Danlos syndrome (EDS), chronic migraine, and persistent pain that went undiagnosed for more than two decades.

From painful periods and joint pain to migraines, digestive issues, and fatigue, Lucy spent years collecting diagnoses without anyone connecting the dots. Receiving an EDS diagnosis finally brought answers—but also a profound shift in how she understood herself and her future.

In this thoughtful and honest conversation, Lucy shares what it means to live with chronic illness while building a meaningful life. We discuss grief, acceptance, pacing, the constant "pain noise" of living in an unpredictable body, and the deliberate choices she makes to prioritise what matters most.

This is a powerful conversation about resilience, self-compassion, and learning to live well alongside chronic illness.

We hope you enjoy.

One of the most painful experiences many people living with chronic illness, disability, mental health challenges, neurodivergence, grief, or major life setbacks experience is the feeling of being somehow "less than."

Less successful.Less productive.Less capable.Less independent.Less worthy.

In this episode, we unpack where this feeling comes from, why it is so common, and how much of it is shaped by the messages we absorb from society rather than objective truth.

We'll explore the hidden rules many of us have been taught about worth, success, independence, productivity, relationships, and achievement, and what happens when illness, disability, or life circumstances make those rules impossible to follow.

Most importantly, we'll discuss how to challenge these beliefs and begin building a sense of worth that isn't dependent on what we can produce, achieve, or contribute.

 Today on But You Look So Good, we're sitting down with Becky, a woman who has spent her entire adult life single, and along the way, received a life-changing diagnosis of multiple sclerosis. While Becky has a close and supportive network of family and friends, living with a chronic health condition has meant facing many of life's biggest challenges independently. From managing symptoms and medical appointments, to buying a home on her own and making decisions about the future. There-- These are the realities that come with carrying so much responsibility yourself. But this isn't just a conversation about the hard parts. What began as Becky sharing snippets of her life online grew into something much bigger. By speaking openly about the realities of being single with MS, she created a community where people feel seen, understood, and less alone. Today, she has a deeply engaged following and continues to have honest conversations about life, health, and hope. In this episode, we explore Becky's diagnosis journey, the experience of living with a chronic health condition while single, the challenges and unexpected gifts that she's encountered along the way, and what she hopes for her future. This is Becky's story, and we think you're going to love it.

Becky's Instagram: @singlewithms

⁠⁠⁠Livology (Psychology - Private Practice)⁠⁠⁠

⁠⁠⁠MS: Get Your Head Around It! (Online Course)⁠⁠⁠

⁠But You’ll Be OK (Online Course)⁠

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Webinars and Resources⁠

If you need any support after listening to our podcast, you can contact Lifeline in Australia at 13 11 14, available 24/7. For support in other locations, please visit⁠ ⁠Befrienders Worldwide⁠⁠.

⁠⁠Instagram @butyoulooksogoodpodcast⁠⁠

In our 100th episode of But You Look So Good, we reflect on the journey of creating this podcast as two psychologists living with MS — what we’ve learned, what has surprised us, and the incredible community that has formed around honest conversations about chronic illness.

We then dive into one of the hardest realities many people face: the difference between acute illness and chronic illness. Society teaches us to expect recovery, but what happens when symptoms don’t go away? How do we psychologically adjust to uncertainty, loss, identity changes, and the grief of realising life may not “go back to normal”?

In this episode, we explore the major psychological challenges that emerge in chronic illness and share three practical coping strategies to help people “deal with the chronic” — including acceptance, grief, and building flexible hope.

⁠⁠⁠Livology (Psychology - Private Practice)⁠⁠⁠

⁠⁠⁠MS: Get Your Head Around It! (Online Course)⁠⁠⁠

⁠But You’ll Be OK (Online Course)⁠

⁠Webinars and Resources⁠

If you need any support after listening to our podcast, you can contact Lifeline in Australia at 13 11 14, available 24/7. For support in other locations, please visit⁠ ⁠Befrienders Worldwide⁠⁠.

⁠⁠Instagram @butyoulooksogoodpodcast⁠⁠

Today's guest is Robyn, an award-winning comedian and writer who lives with Crohn's disease, a condition that affects millions of people worldwide, yet remains so often misunderstood, misdiagnosed, and for many, carries a huge amount of shame. Because let's be honest, we're talking about symptoms that people often feel embarrassed to speak about, let alone joke about on stage. But Robyn has found a way to take something deeply personal, messy, frustrating, and at times incredibly isolating, and turn it into something honest, hilarious, and deeply human.

Fresh off the Melbourne Comedy Festival, and not a stranger to bringing her experience with Crohn's disease to the stage, Robyn joins us to talk about her diagnosis journey, navigating the medical system with a chronic illness, the reality of living with a body that doesn't always cooperate, and how she went from feeling embarrassed by her symptoms to making them part of her art. This is such a funny, real, and important conversation, and exactly the kind of one we love having here.

https://www.instagram.com/therobynreynolds/

⁠⁠⁠Livology (Psychology - Private Practice)⁠⁠⁠

⁠⁠⁠MS: Get Your Head Around It! (Online Course)⁠⁠⁠

⁠But You’ll Be OK (Online Course)⁠

⁠Webinars and Resources⁠

If you need any support after listening to our podcast, you can contact Lifeline in Australia at 13 11 14, available 24/7. For support in other locations, please visit⁠ ⁠Befrienders Worldwide⁠⁠.

⁠⁠Instagram @butyoulooksogoodpodcast⁠⁠

Some days you can function. Some days you can’t. Some days you make plans, show up, laugh, work, parent, and feel almost like yourself. Other days, getting out of bed feels impossible.

For many people living with chronic illness or disability, symptoms aren’t static. Capacity can shift hour to hour, day to day, week to week. Pain, fatigue, mobility, cognition, vision, strength, dizziness, function. It can all change. And while that unpredictability can be physically exhausting, the psychological toll is often just as significant.

In this episode, we unpack the reality of dynamic disability and fluctuating chronic health conditions, including the anxiety of never knowing what version of your body you’ll wake up in, the fear that a bad flare might become the new normal, and why planning anything can feel incredibly vulnerable when your capacity is unpredictable.

We also explore the invisible grief of losing trust in your body, the frustration of being misunderstood because you looked “fine” yesterday, and practical psychological strategies for navigating uncertainty when certainty simply isn’t available.

If you’ve ever found yourself asking, Can I commit? What if I cancel? What if this gets worse? What if this never improves? — this episode is for you.

⁠⁠⁠Livology (Psychology - Private Practice)⁠⁠⁠

⁠⁠⁠MS: Get Your Head Around It! (Online Course)⁠⁠⁠

⁠But You’ll Be OK (Online Course)⁠

⁠Webinars and Resources⁠

If you need any support after listening to our podcast, you can contact Lifeline in Australia at 13 11 14, available 24/7. For support in other locations, please visit⁠ ⁠Befrienders Worldwide⁠⁠.

⁠⁠Instagram @butyoulooksogoodpodcast⁠⁠

 Today you are hearing from Fiona, a woman from Ireland whose life has been shaped by an extraordinary journey through chronic illness, resilience, and reinvention. Fiona was diagnosed with a kidney disease while pregnant in 2009, a diagnosis that came completely out of nowhere. For the next seven years, she managed a progressive debilitating condition while raising three young children, navigating crushing fatigue, a shrinking social circle, and the invisible weight of looking well while feeling anything but. In 2017, thanks to the remarkable generosity of a close friend who turned out to be a near perfect match, 

Fiona received her first kidney transplant. What followed was a stunning period of renewal. She learnt to swim, took up triathlon, became a qualified triathlon coach, and was on the verge of competing in a half Ironman when her body stopped her in her tracks. By 2024, Fiona's transplant had run its course. She's now on hemodialysis, navigating a second wait for a transplant and doing it, as you'll hear, with honesty, humor, and a hard-won perspective on what it means to live fully inside a body that doesn't always cooperate. This is a conversation about chronic illness, about the friends you lose and the ones who show up, about parenting through pain, about identity and athleticism, and about what happens to your sense of self when your body just keeps changing the rules. 

Today’s episode is proudly brought to you by Book Dialysis - With a network of 950+ dialysis clinics and hospitals in 60+ countries, you can now easily and safely book your treatment, anywhere in the world. www.bookdialysis.com

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Livology (Psychology - Private Practice)⁠⁠⁠

⁠⁠⁠MS: Get Your Head Around It! (Online Course)⁠⁠⁠

⁠But You’ll Be OK (Online Course)⁠

⁠Webinars and Resources⁠

If you need any support after listening to our podcast, you can contact Lifeline in Australia at 13 11 14, available 24/7. For support in other locations, please visit⁠ ⁠Befrienders Worldwide⁠⁠.

⁠⁠Instagram @butyoulooksogoodpodcast⁠⁠

What happens when the hardest part of living with a chronic illness isn’t just the symptoms — but the judgement?

In this episode of But You Look So Good, Sally and Seona unpack the comments so many people with chronic health conditions hear: “It’s all in your head,” “Maybe if you exercised more,” “You’re a hypochondriac,” and “Stop using your condition as an excuse.”

They explore the psychological impact of disbelief, invalidation and gaslighting, and why these comments can create shame, self-doubt and burnout. Drawing from both professional and lived experience, they discuss practical strategies for protecting your mental health, setting boundaries, and learning to trust yourself again — even when others don’t understand your reality.

⁠⁠⁠Livology (Psychology - Private Practice)⁠⁠⁠

⁠⁠⁠MS: Get Your Head Around It! (Online Course)⁠⁠⁠

⁠But You’ll Be OK (Online Course)⁠

⁠Webinars and Resources⁠

If you need any support after listening to our podcast, you can contact Lifeline in Australia at 13 11 14, available 24/7. For support in other locations, please visit⁠ ⁠Befrienders Worldwide⁠⁠.

⁠⁠Instagram @butyoulooksogoodpodcast⁠⁠

Our guest today is Chris, a former nurse of thirty-one years and now an award-winning crime writer who was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis after what he describes as a torturous nineteen-year journey to answers. In this conversation, Chris takes us back to those first strange symptoms, the years of pushing through, continuing to work in healthcare, and the frustration of navigating a medical system that didn't always have the answers or believe what he was telling them. 

Having spent decades as a nurse, Chris knew the healthcare system from the inside. Experiencing it as a patient was something else entirely. We also explore the pivot his life took from nursing into writing and how his lived experience of chronic illness found its way into crime fiction in a way few stories do. This is a thoughtful conversation about delayed diagnosis, identity, frustration, adapting to life with MS, and building a completely different chapter than the one you expected.

Links

⁠⁠⁠Livology (Psychology - Private Practice)⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

MS: Get Your Head Around It! (Online Course)⁠⁠⁠

⁠But You’ll Be OK (Online Course)⁠

If you need any support after listening to our podcast, you can contact Lifeline in Australia at 13 11 14, available 24/7. For support in other locations, please visit⁠ ⁠Befrienders Worldwide⁠⁠.

⁠⁠Instagram @butyoulooksogoodpodcast⁠⁠

More about Chris

Instagram

Book: Sick to Death