The Isolating Loneliness of Chronic Pain & Invisible Illness

The Isolating Loneliness of Chronic Pain & Invisible Illness: Chronic pain and invisible illness can be incredibly isolating, sometimes in obvious ways but other times, it’s far more insidious or subtle. Just as our pain and symptoms are mostly invisible, we too can feel as if we’re living behind a silent divide, isolated from life by an invisible window of pain. When pain never pauses, it can make it hard to feel connected—even to those we love. As erratic and unpredictable symptoms can alter and affect friendships and relationships, you may see your friends and family far less, or when you do, feel disconnected — lonely in a crowded room — and quite unlike how things once were, which leads to a different kind of loneliness. “Part of what makes pain “painful” is its privacy and unsharability, the feeling of aloneness,” says David Biro. “This under appreciated feature — to that outsider, that is — is especially true for pain that persists, chronic versus acute pain.”