I try to stay positive about my situation in life and fibromyalgia in general. I usually do an ok job of this but sometimes it just gets overwhelming. I wasn’t feeling well last week and I hadn’t gone shopping in a while because I was waiting until thanksgiving. This meant that everything in my house had to be cooked; no convenience food around.

I was exhausted from cleaning all day and I was super hungry. I started making squash which is more work then I was up for. Plus it messed up the kitchen. I’m not a cook and I somehow angered the squash. It tasted like sulfur and the whole house smelled like rotten eggs. So my once clean house smelled horrible, there were dishes everywhere and I still didn’t have anything to eat. It just felt like so much to handle until I stepped back and looked at it. It was nothing that I couldn’t fix.

When a person is sick there’s a tendency to get overwhelmed, a valid tendency. I remember one time when I almost had a nervous breakdown just because the blinds in the kitchen broke. I was practically hysterical and could trace out exactly how the blinds would ruin my life. One of my friends pointed out “Ok, I know you are stressed out but the blinds fell. That is all that happened. I know for a fact that you’ve pushed yourself through school and to find a job that you can do with fibromyalgia and you aren’t going to be taken down a set of blinds.”

Then I could just laugh and envision my biography “She was doing so well until the blinds fell.” I use that analogy a lot, “The blinds fell”, even when it’s for something else. Sometimes the blinds fall but you can put them back up when you feel better.

If I could tell fibromites and friends of fibromites one piece of advice it would be to make your life flexible. I find that I can accomplish a lot if I work at my own pace. That’s why I love my job. It’s so important and helpful that I can work at home when I want. I think that I make more money then if I was working a set 9-5. I know I would crumble within a few weeks or days and the pain and fatigue would just take over. When I feel up to it I whip out the digital cameras and take pictures for blog posts. If I’m not feeling well then I just sit around and type posts and articles. I work a lot but I do work that I can handle.

Instead, I probably work more than a 40 hour work week but it doesn’t bother my fibromyalgia that much because I don’t have the stress of a set schedule and I can also pick which hours I work.

I find that if there is something that has to be done, like cleaning the apartment at a certain time, meeting a friend for a set lunch, or even having to go to the Post Office on a certain day things get out of hand quickly. It’s better to just set loose plans and you’ll be able to accomplish a lot more in the long run then burning out.

If I hesitate when you ask me to perform a simple task like going shopping with you, there is a reason. If you ask me to go do something social and I say no there is probably a reason. It’s not that I don’t like you, it just costs too much. I’m not even talking about monetary amounts. It just upsets the careful balance of my life in a very real way.

First off, spending times in large crowds is rarely fun for me. I have to wear shoes, that hurts. Then I have to stand up for a long time, that hurts. This means that the next day I’ll probably be really sick, maybe even too sick to work. Then I’ll have to spend the rest of the weekend trying to catch up on work which will just make the fiber flare angrier. So thank you for asking, but please understand if I say no.

Sincerely,

Sarakastic