Invisible

The title of this post is stolen from a Facebook status update going around:

"Please put this as your status if you or someone you know has an invisible illness (like Lupus, Diabetes, Crohns, PCOS, Rheumatoid Arthritis, Kidney Disease, Epilepsy, MS, Depression, Bipolar, M.E, Autism/Aspergers, Fibromyalgia, RSD..etc). Do it for all who have an invisible illness. It's a daily struggle feeling sick on the inside while you look fine on the outside."

As a sufferer of many of these, I can wholeheartedly relate and oftentimes feel as though, because some people just don't understand, that I get looked at as a hypochondriac or a complainer or worse.

I've been told by some that I am a very strong person; that I can withstand so much and still manage to pull through. They are right... I do pull through. But oftentimes folks don't see the inner struggle, the nights laying awake or crying myself to sleep. I've heard the line - "God only gives you as much as you can take; I just wish He didn't have so much faith in me." And sometimes it's true... I often wonder where that breaking point is... and when I'm going to hit it.

It's hard to pick yourself up every day, when eating is a trial, when every movement is painful, when your dreams are dashed because of invisible illnesses, when just managing to get through a day without breaking into tears for "no good reason" is difficult. What's worse is having people look at you or make snide (or supposedly "funny") remarks about it.

How do you explain to someone that Depression is an illness; a disease - when their only perception of it is to "stop being so sad?"

How do you explain that it's embarrassing to socialize around food when you never know what's going to set you off and leave you in pain or (sometimes worse) running for the nearest facility?

How do you politely refuse activites because you know that you move too slow and each of those movements are so painful you can't think?

How do you explain that one of your greatest hopes is to have a child... yet everything in your body seems to conspire against that?

I'm not wasting away; I'm not pale or "gray" or bedridden; I have no external, physical evidence that I am sick. But a day doesn't go by when I am not in some sort of pain - physical or mental.

I just wish those who never had to deal with such things could have it for just a few hours... to understand where some of us come from, day in and day out. We are strong... but sometimes we just need a little bit of propping up to help keep us going.