Why Me?

With a condition like Fibromyalgia it is very difficult not to ask the question, Why Me?  Especially on days when a simple task like doing the grocery shopping leaves me feeling like I am being eaten from the inside out.  An army of monsters with steel claws and sharp teeth gnawing and tearing at every muscle and joint in my body, leaving it hard for me to move or even to breathe.
The body deceives me sometimes, getting my hopes up by giving me days where the pain is bearable.  Bearable enough for me to enjoy a walk in the forest with the kids or a day in the garden but then suddenly like a bolt out of the blue the pain once again rises up on me.
But on these days I have to keep reminding myself that a mere 9 months ago I was incapable of driving anywhere, cooking a meal or even reading a book and it was so for the two years previous to that.  I'm slowly finding my way out of this dark and difficult time but the monster still lives within always ready to let it's presence be known.
On my bad days the Why Me? question follows me everywhere I often look at people my own age and wonder what it is like to have a full busy day, going to work and having a career or studying and not feeling any pain at all.  It has been seven years since I have been able to do any of that and it often feels like I have sometimes been cheated.  Cheated out of a proper life.  Incapable only of being an observer and not a participator as life seems fly by the windows of my house, like some weird episode of Dr. Who.  But I must not let self pity take hold because it will not be friend of mine. It will only crush me and steal my soul.
Something that took me quite a long time to learn is that I am not my pain and my pain is not me.  It is only a part of me.  And this realisation hit me like a streak of lightening.  Illuminating the massive mistake that I was making.  Before this I would it feel like the pain had taken over so much of my life and controlled each and every thing that I did and I had really forgotten all about me.  I became my pain in a way.  Incapable of imagining life without it.  I once said that I thought that I would be lonely without it because it had been with me for each and every day for seven years.  Like a person you don't like but always seems to be around.  It took me a month doing EFT every day with Karin in Germany to make me see what was really happening.  I was being smothered by this terrible condition. And now I realise that we are two seperate entities living in the same body.
Even though I still have my bad times, I'm grateful that I have come so far in the last 9 months.  I am Rosanna once more and I make the most of each and every break that I have from my chronic pain.  

Fibromyalgia and Medication

It is very hard for me to describe the relationship that I've had with my medication and the feelings that I've had towards it.  It began with a longing to be free from the agonising pain that is associated with Fibromyalgia (fibro) and the need to finally bring to an end years of insomnia.  I was willing to try anything that the doctors would give to me, if there was even the slightest chance at all that it might help.  But this too brought with it, its own problems for me.
Firstly when taking new drugs, it would take weeks, sometimes months, for my body to become accustomed to the chemicals involved.  The side effects of many of the tablets were extensive.  Some caused me to gain 3st in weight.  My hair thinned out so much that I looked like I was trying to grow a bald patch.  My short-term memory became so bad that I found myself incapable of following a conversation.  And my eyesight was so severely affected that I had twice as many children as I should have had, I could no longer follow the words of a book to read and driving was definitely out of the question.  My house was no longer a home but a jail.  I was too anxious to leave and too self conscious to meet people outside of the family.
Oxycontin is a certain example of this.  For the past two years I have been on a high level of this drug but in January of this year I said that I had enough of the ever increasing side effects of this medication.  It may have given me the best pain relief that I ever had and a break in the pain is what is required for fibro in order that the pain pathways may be changed but it caused stunted speech and worsened my already poor memory.  It has taken me over four months to slowly come off this drug and it was very hard going at times.  But it was worth it as for the first time in years I now feel like I have the possibility to get out there and start living my life even if I still have some residual pain.
Watch out world here I come.