Living with an Invisible Illness: The Two Sides of Invalidation

When you live with chronic pain, you live with an invisible illness. And with invisibility comes invalidation—both from others, and painfully, from yourself.

On the outside, people don’t always understand what they can’t see. Friends and family ask, “But didn’t you have that expensive procedure? Why aren’t you better yet?” Your doctor might shrug and say, “I don’t know why you’re not improving. All my other patients got better. Maybe you’re not doing something right.”

It can feel like the blame is being placed squarely on your shoulders—as if you choose to have this illness. As if you want to spend your days shuttling between medical appointments, taking handfuls of pills, struggling to contribute financially, or feeling too exhausted to do something as simple as wash your child’s hair.

But there’s another side to this invisibility. And that’s the invalidation that comes from within.

You start to believe the story that maybe this is your fault. That you’re failing because the treatment didn’t work. That you’re failing because you can’t provide for your family the way you used to. You tell yourself that if you just tried harder—if you just pushed through the pain, carried more guilt, or punished yourself more for being sick—you’d somehow get back to the person you were “before.”

And in doing so, you deny the very real and painful truth: that this illness has changed you. That things are different now. And that’s not your fault.

So what if, instead of invalidating yourself, you gave yourself permission to accept?

What if you stopped fighting to return to who you once were—and opened yourself to who you are now?

What might become possible if you let go of the belief that you’re failing—and started to believe that you’re adapting, surviving, enduring?

Acceptance doesn’t mean giving up. It means recognizing reality with compassion, so you can move forward with clarity and strength.

And maybe, just maybe, that’s where healing begins—not of the body, but of the heart.

By Dr Michelle Beukes-King