Featured Member: Nadèche Hanique

DINET member name:  Nadèche Hanique
Nadèche's hometown:  Brabant Province, Holland, Southern Netherlands
Diagnosis: EDS, POTS
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/happymailforfighters/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/happymailforfighters/

Click here to read this profile in Nadeche's native language, Dutch

What inspires Nadèche's work, in her own words...

I have eds, so I’ve been showing symptoms my whole life and was diagnosed when I was 11 years old. I got diagnosed with POTS when I was 19 years old, I am 21 now.

For years I wanted to start my own card project, but I didn’t know how to start etc. Last year I made an Instagram account and I found out that there were other people with chronic illnesses having their own projects to support others and that ’s when I realized I should at least try it.

So I posted a message on Instagram asking if anyone was interested in receiving a personalized card. I got so many requests in such a short amount of time, so I made a different account just for my project and it has been growing ever since! I’ve always wanted to help and support others.  And I can do this work from my own bed, so it works very well for me personally too.   Making others smile, makes me smile! I know from my own experience that it is not always easy to live with chronic illnesses, so I wanted to make the fight for others a little bit easier by supporting them and send them some happy mail to encourage them to keep fighting. I also want to make them feel less alone.

I started Happy Mail for Fighters on the 29th of June 2017. So I’ve been doing this for almost a year now and I hope to continue this project for many years to come!

Quote

"...it is not always easy to live with chronic illnesses, so I wanted to make the fight for others a little bit easier..."  

Nadèche on family and life.....

I’m the only one in my family who has these illnesses. I’m very close with my family and they always support me and help me and I’m very thankful for that! I’m also really thankful that my parents and sister help me with my project. Writing is very difficult for me so my sister writes the addresses on the envelopes and my mom brings the cards to the post office because my chronic fatigue makes it difficult to go to the post office etc. I got diagnosed when I was 11 and I got help from a medical psychologist. She helped me so much and I was so thankful! That’s when I realized that that’s what I want to do in life:  helping others. It has been my dream ever since to become a medical psychologist and I study psychology now. Hopefully, I can help others cope with their illnesses and show them that life is still beautiful and you can still achieve things and follow your dreams.