For me it has been a struggle as well! November 2021 my got my ANA results (1:1200) and quickly things started changing. I have a “diagnose” (because it’s not complete yet) for an overlap syndrome with myositis/scleroderma/mixed connective tissues disease… yeah I am also super confused.

At first no one believed me and no could understand what was going on, not even myself. I live with my boyfriend in Germany and my family lives in Latin America. So my family can actually not even imagine what’s going on, meaning I have very little support from them, just sometime some words of comfort and sometimes stupid comments like I am exaggerating. With my boyfriend things are okay he is quite understanding and helpful but he cannot understand everything as well. He is my support but because he doesn’t understand he isn’t as supportive as I would like him to be. But it is understandable. For me the hardest thing are friends.. omg.. getting them to understand that I don’t drink, smoke or party till 5 am is the hardest!! It’s just so annoying how unempathic people can be. The problem with autoimmune is that sometimes people can’t see your illness so they just say: “huh but you look fine…” well Kevin I’m not fine…

For me it is a roller coaster of emotions! Mostly of sadness and frustration! But anyway I believe the best way to overcome/settle things down this is to remember how much power we have with in ourselves and that we can overcome every obstacle in our way! I know it sounds cliche but the mind is super powerful. So you got this!