Do you feel like the people around you get confused by your smile?

I certainly feel like most people immediately assume I am the most happiest person alive only because I try to smile even when I feel like grinding my teeth and clenching my fists. Somedays I feel like throwing tantrums like a 2 year old but I resist, maybe its because I am an adult and there are better ways to handle life's hardships 🤔

Does this happen to you?

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2legs · 46-50, T

All the time. I@m bright, outgoing, always happy, joking, making fun and jokes over my own medical woes and things, and I get the impression most people view me as ' 'not being ill', or just view my illness as being entirely negated by the treatments, yet, they don't realise, inside, I have no longer even got a faintest clue who I am, the medication and lack of effective actual treating my various conditions, means I'm in constant physical pain, (I don't take painkillers), and my brain is in constant disarray and the cognative problems of the medications mean I can't even read a book anymore . . but... well what can you do......

Encontrados · 46-50, M

@2legs you have what I refer to as true strength.

WildHeart · 41-45, F

@2legs Keep being you, I find that sulking and making everyone miserable around you won't change anything. On the saddest of days I wear my smile yes its only on the surface , but thats my way of dealing with my problems

2legs · 46-50, T

@Encontrados I try to, and on most days now at least, it wins through... - I never knew I was this strong, or strong willed, until I got so ill... even if its a struggle a lot of the time, I now know I can always win through, by brute force (mentally and physically) if nothing else, soemtimes...

2legs · 46-50, T

@WildHeart exactly.... I get such support from my husband, and if I just let out all the missery and pain inside me, all the time, all it'll accomplish is to make him unhappy... instead, he gets to see what, well, basically pretty amazing transformations I've made, in myself, through all the exercise I've forced myself to do the past six months, loosing so much weight, inchs off my waist, and getting back, to above the level of fitness I even had before I was inflicted by all the ill imaginiable... and afterall; when I'm out with friends, in a bar/pub, I can still forget myself, albeit for a short while, just how ill I actually am...