Leanna Johnson Lee - The Chronic Worker

A Black man wearing glasses and a face mask sits in an orange chair with a laptop. Teal watercolor splashes and books frame him.

Chronically Self-Employed

Freelancing and Self-Employment With Chronic Illness

Freelancing can offer chronically ill workers more control and freedom, but it also shifts the work of finding clients, managing pay, and securing benefits onto you.

A hand-drawn tracking spread created by Jill Knobeloch Mills to document patterns in sleep, mood, health and daily life.

Chronic Ways of Working

The tracker isn't the point

Chronic Ways of Working #1 | Jill Knobeloch Mills: Jill built a detailed system to track patterns across health, work, and daily life. Years later, we learn what remained after she no longer needed it.

Bodies & Health

Trying things, keeping what works

September brought me a retail experiment, a much busier schedule, and a return to making things plus a few lessons about what my body can actually handle.

A woman rests on a gray couch under a patterned blanket, with a mug reading “Disabled, Not Unable” on the coffee table.

Chronically Self-Employed

SIPS Month 2: The long tail of recovery

Being functional and being recovered? Not the same thing. SIPS Month 2 explores the gap between usable capacity and fuller recovery.

Chronically Self-Employed

Yes, AI helped me write this

I tried to get (human) help for my AI-assisted work, only to realize I might be asking for too much. Where exactly do debates about ethical AI use leave disability, money, access, and energy?

The Chronic Worker resource guide, Job Resources for Disabled Workers, featuring a woman using a wheelchair working at a laptop.

Work & Money

12 Job boards and resources for disabled and chronically ill workers

Disabled and chronically ill people like us are criminally underemployed in the U.S. These job boards and resources can help change that.

Field Recordings

Field Recording: What month one of SIPS taught me

An audio companion to the first monthly field report from the Starr Institute of Physiological Shenanigans.

A Chronic Worker and SIPS crossover banner with a travel theme, rose compass, and the title: The Curious Case od the Highly Suspicious Human Physiology

Chronically Self-Employed

What month one of SIPS taught me

This imaginary 1930s travel research institute has become the home of all my health data collection and analysis to help me better understand my body with chronic illness.

The Chronic Life Observation Tooklit banner with teal field notes journal and embossed red rose

Field Kits

Field Kit #1 is here! The Chronic Life Observation Kit

A low-burden way to observe your health in context and notice patterns over time.

The Chronic Worker stock photo og disabled woman working from bed with a skull cane and teal journal.

Chronically Self-Employed

Apparently I've been busy

I work from bed and use my cane significantly more than I used to, but life is settling down as I adjust to a new reality of physical and mental chronic illness.

A woman stands alone on a subway platform looking at her phone while other commuters move nearby.

Chronically Self-Employed

Suicide is a control thing

Depression is easy. You just cease to be a functional human being. But choosing to live each day, over and over again? That’s the tough part.

Black and white photo of woman resting on sofa

Bodies & Health

3 lessons I've learned living with major depression

Back once again to share my thoughts on living with depression. It's been a rough six weeks!