Please Don't Say That Word

As those of us with Fibromyalgia know, the phrase "the F word" does not mean what it once did to us. Instead of summoning vulgar images or troubled times, it simply means pain. So yes, we may run around laughing at "the F word", because oh how we long for it to just be another bad word in a string of obscenities! Spoken in a curse when one hits their thumb with the hammer. Not an illness that has taken over our lives. Rules it, controls it. Go ahead and say the phrase "the F word" to a Fibrate. No images of copulation or a horrible car accident come to mind. Just that never ending pain.

Another one you must be aware if is "the S word". For that one is almost as bad as the F word up there. Spontaneous. Oh it used to mean fun and adventure, willing to take a risk. But now? Oh my, not now. Ever been accused of not being spontaneous, flexible, willing to go with the flow? Ever held culpable for being demanding, high-maintenance or self-absorbed if you do not? I sure have. And that go with the flow thing is a cause of contention for me. Because it is always somebody elses "flow" I have to go with! Hey, what about my flow? Why do they get to decide the flow? I want to be the one that decides the flow everyone else must follow along. But that requires planning and energy. Ha! No wonder...

And yet one more word that does not mean one thing close to the first thing your mind jumps too, "the D word". No I am not talking about the softest of all curse words, a subtle verb stirring up images of things we do not like and wish to condemn. I am talking about drugs. Because nary is there a Fibro patient around that has not danced with this devil in the pale moonlight. Sometimes 5 or 10 devils at a time, even! And yes, medications help, but they can also hurt. I made a decision years ago that being in pain was a far superior choice to being fat and crazy, my side-effects of the particular D word I was on to treat that horrible F word. I stopped taking it and realized how well it was actually helping my pain, so the search began for a new D word I could tolerate without those nasty accompaniments.

So as you see words can have a very different meaning when one becomes part of a club, an exclusive community. And different associations are attached to those words because of the commonality we share. So when you walk in my door and I look like the referee from a Monday night smack-down between a train and a plane, please please don't ask me if the F word is finally better today because of that new D word I am taking so we can go be the S word and have some fun! I just may have to say "F@#k you! I am damn sick and feel like shit. Go away and come back another day, when my F word may want to be S word with you, for maybe the D word will be working by then and I can actually tolerate leaving my house." Sorry folks, there really is no other way to say it!

Thanks for joining,

Leah