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“What loneliness is more lonely than distrust?”

GEORGE ELIOT

Many diseases can be diagnosed rather quickly these days. Certain ones, however, remain elusive and require a considerable amount of detective work. As some of us have discovered, such hard-to-diagnose illnesses can present special problems.

When our symptoms came and went, increased and diminished in severity, and seemed not only mysterious but possibly imaginary, friends, loved ones, and even our physicians became somewhat skeptical. The longer the condition remained undiagnosed and unnamed, the more skeptical some of them became, and the more our own self-doubt grew.

Even now, months after we were finally diagnosed, certain people exhibit a degree of skepticism and mistrust. They raise an eyebrow, so to speak, when we describe our fatigue, pain, and limitations. And then it’s as though we are back in pre-diagnosis limbo, frustrated and infuriated.

We’ll do everything we can to help those people understand the seriousness of our illness. If it becomes clear that understanding is beyond their reach, we’ll then do our best to let it go and move closer to those who do understand.

THOUGHT FOR TODAY

My priorities do not include convincing skeptics or defending myself.