My Journey with Fibromyalgia

This is my journey and no one else’s.  Those who choose to walk beside me, I will embrace.  Those who try to dictate my life, I will discard.  No one fully understands what my life has become and most will never care enough to find out.  No one knows my story because I’ve never told it. I’ve never told it because no one has ever asked to hear it.

I’ve had the symptoms of an invisible illness since I was ten years old.  It sounds kind of silly, but it’s true.  You can look at me and it appears that nothing is wrong.  I appear to be a healthy woman with a few extra pounds.  There is no way for you to imagine the degree of pain I’m in every minute of every day.  I laugh, I joke and for the most part I’m happy, but all the while this invisible illness is raging on inside of me.

On a really bad there are visible signs, but chances are you won’t notice unless you pay very close attention.  On these days I walk a lot slower, I can’t bend over and most likely I won’t have the energy to take a shower.  Some will notice this and assume I’m just being lazy.  They have no idea what it feels like to wake up in the morning feeling more exhausted than the night before.

My eyes are blood shot, my vision is blurred and my words are slurred.  Instead of asking, most assume I’m drunk or high, but I’m just in a flare and the symptoms of my invisible illness are ten times worse than they usually are.  I thought it couldn’t get any worse than this, but I was so wrong because it was after this point that I lost abilities that made me who I wanted to be. Read More...