When everything hurts- choosing joy with fibromyalgia

When everything hurts (choosing joy with fibromyalgia)

We just celebrated our 30th wedding anniversary! Oh, the dreams of romance and wild new adventures…

However, those plans were cut short. When everything hurts, we need to live life with a Plan B mentality.

I wrestled with sharing this. It’s scary to be vulnerable, right? Sometimes we see highlight reels on social media and forget that real people are behind those curated photos. The witty captions. The filters.

Real life with fibromyalgia

Below is an unfiltered view of what I look like. Post date. Post activity. Post anything. This is what living with chronic pain looks like, real-time.

Please know, this is not to garner sympathy, it is to encourage you! Let me share why…

My husband snapped this photo. After making it through our short date, my beloved set me up on a traction machine and loaded up the 4 ice packs. Decidedly unromantic. A definite plan B. 🙂

Maya Angelou- ”I can be changed by what happens to me but I refuse to be reduced by it.”

It sucked. It was agonizing, pain-wise. And worse? Deeply disappointing. Again.

What it feels like to live with fibromyalgia

Fibromyalgia can be isolating.

Suffering is often in silence—-we don’t hire a marching band and put up signs that say “please bring me dinner, I’m hungry”. 😂

We hide in the silence, because we fear saying “suffering”, sounding dramatic.

I’m suffering several injuries on top of typical pain of fibromyalgia and CFS. But, it’s a snapshot like any other, not the whole story.

How do you tolerate fibromyalgia?

Life with chronic illness teaches you wonderful things. I didn’t become a perspective advocate by reading books, but via experience.

It’s helpful to count your blessings. Not to minimize, but to keep them in focus through a proper lens.

Gratitude changes everything. Start with the tiniest things on the hardest days. It builds upon itself, and it becomes a snowball effect. It doesn’t mean you can’t feel disappointed. I do. But pity parties are too lonely. Choose joy! It will come with practice
Sickness doesn’t define you. You are not “valuable ” based on subjective variables. On the darkest days, even with the most limited capabilities? There is something that you offer that holds inestimable value to somebody else
The Bible has much to say about rest. It is not useless time. But it IS often forced upon us, how much better to seek it before that happens
Isolation comes naturally in suffering. That’s not the best option. If offered? Allow other people in. Don’t deny each other the opportunity to give and receive

It is okay to have ALL the emotions. They are real, and there is no shame in our anguish. (read this post permitting you to not feel happy all the time)

The beauty is in the “yet”, the “however”…

Don’t give up. Joy comes in the morning. Embrace life -it’s the best way forward!

Isaiah 61:3
…(God will) bestow upon them a crown of beauty
instead of ashes, the oil of joy
instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair.