IME, most times when you mention "autoimmune disease", people think AIDS. Explaining that your autoimmune disease is kind of the opposite of AIDS, that it's not

IME, most times when you mention "autoimmune disease", people think AIDS. Explaining that your autoimmune disease is kind of the opposite of AIDS, that it's not contagious, are annoyingly common experiences. And it still amazes me - personally I knew about autoimmune diseases before I ever had one. Probably because of Seal, frankly. The reality is that a large portion of any population doesn't care to learn about anything outside of their immediate lived experience. Easy to forget this when hanging out on HN and having a nerdy and wonky social circle.