Emotional Challenges of Living with Invisible Chronic Illness

Emotional Challenges of Living with Invisible Chronic Illness are loneliness, frustration, anger, sadness, and hopelessness. Invisible illness are chronic pain conditions, mental health disorders, and autoimmune diseases. These conditions can affect a person’s daily life, but they may not be immediately obvious to others by looking at them.

Has anyone ever asked said: You don’t look sick? For us a question like this could be devastating. The lack of visible symptoms leads to misunderstandings and lack of support from friends and family. Also if you have a profession it’s not well understood. Health benefits could be a challenge as it require us to educate and be persistent so we can access appropriate healthcare. Examples of invisible illnesses include but not limited to: vestibular migraines, fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue syndrome, depression, anxiety, lupus, multiple sclerosis, and inflammatory bowel disease.

Emotional Challenges:

Isolation

This can be due to a lack of understanding from friends and family, or feeling like no one truly understands the daily struggles of living with a chronic illness. A solution here is to spend the time educating the people close to you. They won’t know until you explain, it’s not fair to expect empathy when they truly do not understand.

Frustration

Frustration can set in specially when you compare yourself to what you consider “normal”. We have limitations and have to manage symptoms and making adjustments to our daily activities. Acceptance is key! Until you accept your condition you won’t be able to move forward. It is extremely important to move past the fantasy of the past or the “normal life”. Accept and take action on the areas you can control, for example managing your diet better.

Hopelessness

Or helpless, the uncertainty and unpredictability of living with an illness can be overwhelming. So, in order to manage better keep a diary and track your daily symptoms. Nothing is worse than being unprepared, you won’t be able to manage 100% of the attacks but if you learn to recognize you might be able to minimize the effects. Also learn you triggers so you can either avoid, eliminate or control to find relief from your condition.

It’s important to acknowledge and validate these feelings, and know that it’s normal to have ups but I will always recommend Do not give into the Pity party!!