Shame with Chronic Illness/Disability

In the chronic illness community we talk a lot about how we feel "guilt" for not living up to society's standards. I am not perfect and I have fallen into the seemingly harmless trap of saying "I feel guilty for not being able to ____" The thing is guilt is when we have done something wrong and are at fault. Shame is when we have done nothing wrong and bear the emotional stress anyways. It's so common that we forget that these things are completely different, and when we say over and over and over again that we feel "Chronic illness guilt" we are saying that we are at fault for our illnesses. That internalizes and is not helpful for our journey in life. We also need to remember that we are not machines; we are not a malfunctioning phone or a broken computer that needs to be thrown away. We are not useless just because we don't function as well, our value as human beings does not degrade based on ability that is not the only thing that makes us great. We were not put on this Earth to function or do. We were put on this Earth to live. We can't look at ourselves as if we are nothing more than our abilities and inabilities as if we were new phones coming off the shelves. There is so much more to you than what your illness has taken away. We are living breathing beings who should be valued on character not function, I am not a broken phone and neither are you.