When I first started on my road to recovery and healing with fibromyalgia and chronic pain, my physician and therapist recommended that I keep a journal to track my pain as well as my thoughts at the end of each day. It’s a way for me to release any emotions from the day and send them into the universe. A way to empty the burdens, negative energy, or any other emotion to be rid of them in order to reduce stress and my overall pain. It’s my fibro journal.
I have decided to share my journal with my readers. A way for this fibro mom to be raw and real with my readers to reveal that we all struggle, celebrate, and embrace our ups and downs. Please understand that everyone is different in their journey with fibromyalgia and/or chronic illness. This is my journey, my stories, my vulnerability to share with you in order to help in some way. It is in no way to compare my journey with yours or to minimize your pains, feelings, or experiences. In return, I ask for you to also not minimize my pains, feelings or experiences, and for you to be open-minded and open-hearted to anyone living with a chronic illness.
Fibromyalgia is Lonely
October 13, 2017
Twice in one week I’ve been excluded from an outing with my friends. I have to decline and cancel so many social events due to my illness that it’s at a point where I simply don’t get invited any more. It’s assumed I can’t make it for whatever reason.
But whatever the reason, it hurts to not get invited. It hurts to see your closest friends go out while you stay at home. Again. For the thousandth time. Even if I have to decline, being included in plans reminds me that my friends still care about me. They still want me to be included even though I have to continuously decline. Receiving an invite says to me, “I know you’re struggling, but we are still here for you and care about you. We want your company when you’re able.” So you can imagine what an exclusion feels like – the opposite of that.
It hurts to know I’m still struggling to socialize after years of living with fibromyalgia and other ailments. Fibromyalgia involves chronic pain, stomach issues, anxiety, depression, sensitivity to sounds and lights, headaches, and more. All of it brought on suddenly and without explanation. It makes socializing hard, and requires an effort of strength I usually don’t have after a day of battling all the symptoms.
Does it get easier to socialize as time goes on? At one time I thought it would, but right now I’m not thinking it will. It’s been over a decade of living with this condition, and I’m still struggling. Not every day or as much as I have in the past, but the social struggle is still as real as it was in the beginning.
Let’s just face it: Fibromyalgia is lonely. Even when surrounded by others, it’s lonely and isolating. Living this life with an everyday struggle makes me sad, angry, then sad again. It’s like being on a hormonal roller coaster not knowing when the next high or low point will be. But it’s there – just around the next turn.
Read the rest of this journal entry at Fibromyalgia is Lonely at My Fibro Journal.
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