Susan,

I have the same inner struggle, as I'm sure most of us here do as well. I find that it is mostly my guilt at not living the life I envisioned that is making me sad. My friends and family understand things to a point where they do not put expectations on me but at the same time, the invisible illness prevents them from reaching a real level of understanding.

People have seen, for example, "cancer" whether it be by someone they know or depicted on TV, etc...there are physical components viewable by the naked eye, people *know* that chemo drags the crap out of you...I, without having had cancer, can completely empathize with what someone might be going through and imagine what it must be like.

With our afflictions, you often can't *see* anything and the symptoms aren't easily translatable to others. And, when pain is involved, there is often the aspect of someone minimizing (and not always to be a jerk, even well meaning people) what that must be like since, hey, I have aches and pains too. Oh, you're tired, yeah, I'm tired too. Not ever understanding that it is NOT the same as 'aches and pains' or a (in my case) regular situation of 'being tired'. I'd kill for regular aches and pains!

Back to the guilt aspect...you did struggle and overcome I'm sure for a very long time before things got to where they are. I bet you don't give yourself enough credit for that. I was living with pain on an infrequent basis for years and then when it was daily, I put up with it for about two years before I finally sought treatment/diagnosis.

Just because you may reach a point where you aren't sad over what could have been doesn't mean that you've given up either. Lives change by the day, it is the hope that you need to retain that your situation could improve somehow, someday (even only if it's a little bit) and that as far as worst case scenarios go, you could be in a far more dire situation. (Not that I'm suggesting we taking solace in other people's misery!)