...I don't have a job I can do. I may have a job I am quickly becoming unable to do, a job on the verge of extinction or a job that I have already lost. But I do not have a viable way to support myself and my dependents, so how do I minimize stress with no income?
...I don't have access to the type of health care that understands Fibromyalgia and how to manage it. I am locked in a HMO, Medicare or Medicade, or simply have no or very restricted insurance since I lost my job. I don't have the luxury of shopping around and looking for doctors I can get to believe me. I am treated like a psychologically imbalanced nut job when the reality is it's a neurologically imbalanced illness but no one is paying attention, so how am I supposed minimize stress without access to adequate health care to manage my symptoms?
...My relationships in life are falling apart. I am hardly intimate with my spouse or partner anymore because I hurt all the time. My children resent not having a healthy mom or dad to do all the things their friends parents do for them. My friends and family put pressure on me to get over this so we can get back to living our life as normal again. So how am I supposed to minimize stress when family and friends won't accept my limitations?
...Guilt is radiating from my body. I am so pitifully sad and angry because I am so dependent on others for basic things in life. And I can't return the favor because I am an empty bottomless well of need with nothing to give. I project these feelings into anger at many of those around me, and depression towards myself. I am so hopeless and confused and lashing out. So how am I supposed to minimize stress when I have the most relentless cord of anger whipping out at all around me?
...I am skipping along the yellow brick road one day and out of nowhere a debilitating chronic pain condition knocks me down, throws me around a little and spits me out a bruised, battered and beaten shadow of my former self. So how am I supposed to minimize stress when the rug of my life has been yanked out from underneath me?
...The frustration of Social Security is astounding. They refuse to believe that I cannot work. Appeal after appeal, month after month with no cash coming in. So how how am I supposed to minimize stress with no guarantee of shelter or food for the future?
...It has been so long since I earned a decent wage that I now have nowhere to live. My credit is shot, I can barely function and friends and family have fallen away like petals on a dying daisy. So how am I supposed to minimize stress when I have nowhere left to go?
Sadly my friends Fibromyalgia can strike hard and brutal, completely destroying some people's lives. The illness itself is awful, an unexplained pain syndrome with no modern medicinal cure and limited treatment options. But the stigma of Fibromyalgia not being a "real" illness has to be over. If someone does not believe in the validity of Fibromyalgia send them to look at the links on The Fibromyalgia Crusade website. If they know more about Fibro's validity than the CDC, WHO, FDA, NIH and Mayo Clinic, I welcome a personal introduction. At this point that is just ignorance.
All of this awareness is about each person setting down the bag of bricks of the skepticism and doubt they have been tied too. And throwing the name Fibromyalgia back in the faces of the members of the medical community that were the ones that named it that in the first place! This illness hits some hard and knocks others off their feet. We have a responsibility to our fellow Fibrates to push awareness forward in any way we can. The above statements ring oh-so-true for entirely too many of our friends who face the hopeless and tragic situation Fibromyalgia can strip you bare and abandon you in. By looking out for each other and spreading awareness wherever possible, we are doing what it takes to push knowledge of this illness to the next level. And hopefully soon patients will be treated far better than we ever were.
Thanks for joining,
Leah
