While SCP-1471 (see an animation regarding it if you like) is intended to express creepiness (stalking in particular), it strikes me that it is a very good analog of chronic illness. Bad decisions and/or bad luck lead to the creation of this … thing that is now going to be with you forever.

It’s just … kind of … there. Always. But because it’s always there, always with you, you pay it no mind. You don’t have to learn to not let it bother you, that just happens, because our minds adapt. (Which is not saying that we ever come to ignore it.)

Among those with it, there’s immense variation in how severely it impacts one person versus another. And even in the cases where it affects people the exact same way physiologically, there are big differences in how different people respond psychologically.