This week the flare hit so hard I didn't know what was happening to me. All I could feel was more anguish and desolation than I could bear. The why's of life started swirling around my mind again, their utter uselessness distracting me with the unfairness of it all. I seethed hatred and anger at my life, the consequences of my existence, and mostly the prison my health has left me in. That was Monday and Tuesday. Miraculously on Tuesday night I slept, which was but a pipe dream the two nights before. On Wednesday I woke up and felt, dare I say it...human? Every inch of my body didn't hurt and I didn't want to hurl myself off the nearest bridge. Victory!
That's when I realized I'm getting better. See that flare state I just described above was my continuous reality for months...and months...and months. I've known for a few weeks now I was stabilizing, that all my juicing and resting and exercising was starting to right the broken-down vessel that is my ship. But I didn't realize how much I'd improved until I was thrust back into the netherworld of constant and pervasive fibromyalgia.
So slowly I turn my sights forward. Gently I can start to reclaim the small parts of myself I had to bury deep inside to survive my last relapse. But my natural tendency is to race full-speed ahead to replace everything I lost. Quickly, like the less time my life is missing from my life, the more I can deny it was ever gone. But I built my house on sand before. Sure I may have physically managed my fibromyalgia, but inside I was still broken and flogging myself for allowing such a predicament in the first place. I was in so much emotional pain when I embarked on my fitness journey in 2013, all I could do was shove it all aside, plaster a smile on my face, and pretend it was real.
Somehow I have to figure out a way to do better this time. A way to stop pretending and make it real. Lasting and authentic. I've been given an 86th chance. So many patients never figure out a way to improve their symptoms so they can improve their lives. I have. But my greed and impatience in wanting my "healthy" life back fooled me into believing I could just push my way into it. I can't. I'm a different me, something I've accepted in the past but its never really stuck. But it's really about time it stuck.
Thanks for joining,
Leah
