Fibromyalgia and What I Learned

When I was first diagnosed with fibromyalgia, I tried to tell myself that many other people were much worse off than me. This is undoubtedly true. As bad as my worst flare-ups would get, I knew that eventually I'd feel at least a little better. I learned that fibromyalgia is not degenerative. It can be debilitating but it wasn't going to kill me. So, I told myself to suck it up and get on with life.

That worked for me ... uh, not at all. I never fully admitted that my life had to change. I threw myself into the vicious cycle of doing too much, having a flare-up, crashing, recovering, doing too much, and so on and so on.

I was depressed, in pain and exhausted all the time. I finally broke. I took advantage of my company's employee assistance program and made an appointment with a therapist. She told me something that changed my perspective. She said that it didn't matter that other people were worse off than me. She said that there would always be someone whose situation was worse. That didn't mean that I had to discount what was happening to me. It didn't mean that I couldn't feel bad about what was happening to me.

I got permission to feel sad and angry and afraid about the changes in my life. Sometimes I still feel sad and angry and afraid. But you know what? I don't feel guilty about it. I learned that masking my feelings about my illness is not productive. I learned that I have a right to mourn the life I lost. When those lessons sunk in, I started to see that I could make a new life for myself. I could see myself living a good life even though I have a chronic illness.