Morning, Pamela,

I'm imagining that I'm writing this from a window overlooking your lake hous
e! How nice..

Pamela, you are definitely NOT alone in the friend issue arena. I'm counting
 my close friends and they are two. My husband and his best friend and yet t
he friend still has no idea how sick I really am. I put on my "all's good" f
ace when he's around. The
only excuse I have now that people can half way understand is when I use my 
Hashimoto's thyroid disease to explain to them why I quit my exercise class,
 or why I can't go out for drinks, or go out at all anymore. It's the ONLY t
hing I have diagnosable th
at people understand.

I'm a shell of my previous CFS self, just in the last year. My Hashimoto's h
as taken it all out of me. Being hypothyroid is like CFS mulitiplied by 10. 
Many people believe I had Hashimoto's all along, and if I get it under contr
ol everything else will g
o away. I did NOT wake up with Hashimoto's. I woke up with a flu that change
d my entire life as I knew it 15 yrs ago. Hashimoto's is just a result. I lo
ok at all my supplements and naturopath bills and wonder where the heck the 
guy is out there who can fi
x me with gene therapy instead of ALL this other stuff. We've all been strug
gling this long with no cure. Heck, people with HIV almost live a better exi
stence than some of us. Not that I'd trade this disease for HIV, but dear go
d, can we not get some legi
timate help?

Pamela, I don't know how to tell you to deal with the lack of understanding 
and care from your friends. My own mother, who is one of the most understand
ing people I know, still she does not get it. She thinks it was the emotiona
l trauma of being an only
child with a young mom who wasn't around much. Again, another person who thi
nks it's all in my head because, "you don't look sick". Thank god for the go
iter or they'd have put me in the loony-bin by now! LOL!

For help through the hard times I look to my spiritual side. Yeah, and I get
 mad too once in a while. You know, the whole why me bit. And I too, put too
 much pressure on my husband. Thank God for him. But honestly, he's the only
 reason I haven't done so
mething to hurt myself. It would devastate him and I couldn't imagine leavin
g him with those emotions. But it gets that hard sometimes.

Hang in there. Wish we were near each other. At least we could lay out toget
her, watch movies and dish about the world together from our safe zones with
out any outside judgement. What fun that would be!

Take care. We're always here if you need to chat 

-Wendi


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