One thing I have learned is that there are many illnesses out there that people suffer greatly with throughout their lifetime and others don't understand. My husband has reflex sympathetic dystrophy; he's had it for 31 years now. Try explaining a degenerative neurological pain syndrome to people. It's extremely complex. It never goes away. He suffers symptoms every single second of every single day of his life. I live with him and can only sort of fathom the level of extreme pain he lives with nor the psychological impact it has on him; I will never "really" understand what he lives with. Every once in a blue moon, he runs across someone with his diagnosis, but it is unusual when that happens. Just the other day, I was pushing him around a store in a wheelchair because he just had surgery before Christmas and walking distances on his crutches is difficult even on good days. In line to get lunch was a woman also in a wheelchair, and she happened to notice his crutches that he was holding (they are unusual and always catch the eye of people who have to live on crutches long-term). They struck up a conversation about those crutches and had a few moments of understanding about the difficulties of being permanently physically handicapped even though they have different diagnoses. That's usually about as close as it gets to finding anyone who has a remote clue for him.

So, I just try to remember that there are many people "alone" in the world for many different reasons. The most maybe we can do is respect that fact and support each other in our struggles.