My friend’s article and today inspired me:

Sometimes the pain is just a hum in the background of my experience. I can distract myself from it. I can do chores around the house like dishes and laundry.

And then the pain comes screaming at me: “Me, Me, Me, Look at me!” I am wrung. I can do nothing and I cannot distract.

The pain is too much. I shower to give myself the warmth of the water, but I must sit, I cannot stand, the pain manages my body’s energy.

I am disabled in ways that cannot be seen. There is conceptual understanding, I know. But the other understanding is not there. I can see it in the eyes of others that I love and who love me.

Sometimes a long time goes by with just the hum. I don’t know when or how the pain changes.

Yes, I am overdone, but I was just living! I didn’t do anything special or extra, look how active I was in my old life! Why can’t I work all day and have the satisfaction of a job well done?

Because the fibromyalgia is not listening to my old life. The fibro believes it is a new day and a new way to act on this body. So. the fibro marches forward attaching to each muscle and gaining in pain.

How does one function when life is this unpredictable? One day a bearable functioning and the very next, an unbearable existence steeped with pain.

How does one function when the pain puts you down?