Even before you have a name for your illness, you know how lousy it makes you feel.  Naming it fibromyalgia does not change much of anything.  You will still be bombarded with more medications to try, more questions to answer, and have days when you imagine that being run over by a bus would feel better.  You get accustomed to the pain, the tiredness, the nausea, the insomnia, the forgetfulness, the isolation, the medications, the questions, and the never-ending worry.  It becomes the lens through which you greet life and life greets you.  There is nothing rose-tinted about this.

During the period when most aspects of life seem to be one giant flurry, your mind may lose track of one certain factor: you have been forever changed.  However you have understood yourself is now, at best, moot.  Of course, this does not have to cause despair. It simply means making adjustments, challenging yourself to seeing you in a new light.

This is what the doctors will likely never tell you.  This is what loved ones may not understand.  This is what you could struggle to accept. You will never be the you you once knew.

Fibromyalgia is an illness that takes.  Yet still, even as it takes, it gives. What the doctors may never tell you is that it is your job to discover what fibromyalgia gives. It is your job to learn how fibromyaglia helps you to grow as an individual, how it gives you the opportunity to understand the world around in new ways.

I have met women who believe that fibromyalgia is a sort of death sentence.  I have even met women who see it as their ticket to receiving permanent care from others. Personally, I cannot fathom living like that.  Fibromyalgia is but one aspect of who I am.  It does not define me.  Do not let it define you.

Until Next Time,

D.