Does anyone else feel alone in the severity of our illness?

Anyone else feel so alone in real life with bipolar?

I've had it for over a decade and it hurts when I have to explain my illness in elementary speech to almost everyone around me. They don't know even the basic words - what mania, depression, agitation, or bipolar really mean. They're goodhearted friends and really do care and want to know how I'm doing, but I can't talk to them about how I'm truly doing because they can't fathom the complexity of bipolar. When they ask, "How are you?" I have to simplify everything down to what feels like child speech. I certainly can't tell them the full reality and what I'm scared of and what dangerous thoughts I've been having or whatever else.

Their own experience with mental illness is like, "I think I have anxiety," and "I had postpartum depression for 6 months." That's absolutely valid! I'm not saying that's nothing. But it's nothing compared to what bipolar has been like. So when I talk to them about mental illness, it's usually about them and I pat their head (figuratively) and listen to them talking, murmuring understanding words and helping them feeling validated - because I've experienced so much more than that and can understand with them.

So my only outlet for talking to someone about my bipolar without having to explain all of that is my therapist.

Does anyone else feel like this? Alone in having such a severe illness? You understand other people's smaller experience but no one comes close to understanding yours?

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.