Yes it is very isolating. I hope u have better days. Mine are sucking lately

Yep, it is an isolating disease...I wrote that my friends have quit calling because I can't plan anything. My life is ruled by the fibro even though I fight it every day, every minute... I understand the isolation and am sorry you are down today...

I hear ya... I was never the greatest social butterfly to have lived, but I had friends before fibro and now I've got one person I still hear from via email every once in a while but that's pretty much it other than people I talk to on here. My friends got too involved in their own lives to show any support for my chronic issues that they didn't understand in the first place. I always thought it would be ever so slightly easier to tolerate the crap from being sick if only I had a few good friends around to show me some support and love, but as it has it the friends I used to have were not the people to ever expect to be that way. One strange good thing about being chronically ill is that you do learn who your true friends are because the true ones will learn to live with it like you do and will try to understand when everyone else gives up. Turns out my friends weren't true so perhaps I'm not missing so much not having them in my life anymore anyway. Still, it would be nice every now and then to have someone else to lean on besides my parents and the kindness of strangers on this site....

Thank you one and all for the replies. It means so much to be in a group who understands...what it feels like to look "just fine" and to know inside things aren't fine,that it has taken every once of energy left in your body to just get up and get ready and make it to work.

I know that is what everyone does, gets up and goes to work but most days I feel like I should get a gold medal for doing so. And making it through the day, another gold medal.

I know there are so many people "out there" that inwardly roll their eyes when you say you have fibro. I think I was one of them before it descended upon my life.

Thank you all for being here; for reading and caring about what I have to say. I don't know another person in the world who has this illness and it is so enabling to know I am not alone. It means everything. And I am grateful as you mention, for the kindness of you strangers. Blessings to you all!

Oh and I did take what I hope will be a positive step forward. My daughter is a social worker and has panic attacks (probably due in part to the great genes she inherited) and is in "emdr" therapy. Talk therapy, for me, has always sucked because I just cry, so I looked into EMDR therapy for chronic pain management. It has to do with trauma and eye movement, but there is a lot I'd solid research behind it. I have my first session on Tuesday. Fingers crossed. (I am fortunate enough to have an Employee Assistance Program that is going to pick up 6 sessions. )