Grieving the life that could’ve been

All my life, I thought I was going to have this impressive career and I always had the desire of starting my own business, I still do. But the last few years have been truly awful for me, my entire life changed. I only got my diagnosis recently, so I feel like I’m going through the grieving process of what my life was meant to be but never will be because I now know, I have a condition that I can’t recover from, just learn to live with it.

Before my diagnosis, doctors always told me I’ll get better one day, they just don’t know when and I clung onto that hope - now that’s gone. I’ve really been struggling at work and every day I think this is the day I’ll completely break down and won’t be able to get up again. It’s becoming more and more clear, that a full-time job and a whole life of working like this is likely not going to work for me. All the more reason to fulfil my dream and start my own business, right?

However, I know that it’s incredibly difficult to start a business and it requires a lot of hard work and energy. Something I can’t give at all, so I feel like I find myself in this constant loop of thoughts: can’t work a regular job - need to start a business to be able to manage my condition and time - can’t start a business because of my condition - need to have a regular job - and so on.

I’m guessing all of you have gone through some sort of grieving process for the life you don’t get to live because of POTS and possibly other conditions but honestly, how do you deal with it? How do you deal with having to work and feeling like you’re just a shell of a human day in day out? Wanting to be successful but just not being able to give what is needed consistently because you’ll crash? Does it get easier? Have any of you actually started businesses? Is it possible with a condition like this?

These are just some of the thoughts that go through my mind daily and idk I just feel so sad and lost.