How do I make you believe is a solo exhibition of textile-based works that examine how pain, illness, panic, and exhaustion are dismissed when bodies continue to appear functional within systems of productivity. The works are based on personal experience with chronic illness. By using embroidery as a feminist and disability-affirming action, the artist shows how pain, illness, and exhaustion surface in everyday life for chronically ill bodies that appear functional to others.Despite being a systemic issue, chronic illness is treated as an individual’s failure to fit into capitalist logics. This causes feelings of guilt over needing care, isolation from cancelled plans, shame of invisibility, and the draining labour of justifying pain to medical professionals, family and society at large. By tying worth to output, the so-called “unproductive bodies” are devalued, penalized, and erased – the slow, repetitive, and unhurried action of fine embroidery counters this erasure, offering a space for doubt and pain.