Wednesday, January 19, 2011

Adapting Successfully to Long Term Illness – May Start with Dumping the Denial

Another must read for anyone struggling with pacing

Adapting Successfully to Long Term Illness – May Start with Dumping the Denial

ADAPTING TO FIBROMYALGIA

When I received the diagnosis of fibromyalgia in February of 2001, I realized I had been unknowingly living with illness and denying it most of my life.

Even as a child, I felt like my nerves were all prickly and fuzzy like static buildup. I lived with pain, stiffness, fatigue and troubled sleep. Into adulthood, weather changes, certain foods, lights, sound, the touch of my clothes, even thinking hurt. Every day was an exhausting struggle.

But the worst would pass, and I would be told how healthy I looked and that I was just out of shape and needed to push myself harder, and that there was really nothing wrong with me and I was just too sensitive.

I accepted this view of myself and lived in denial of the truth of my experience

Psychological abuse - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Psychological abuse - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Abusers may aim to avoid household chores or exercise total control of family finances. Abusers can be very manipulative, often recruiting friends, law officers and court officials, even the victim's family to their side, while shifting blame to the victim.[33][34]

He who cannot do what he wants must make do with what he can.

He who cannot do what he wants must make do with what he can.
- Terence

So poignant for anyone with M.E. - pacing may prevent avoid the 'boom-bust' cycle of overexertion and relapse but leads inevitably to a restricted lifestyle wherein the everyday joys of bird song or the first flowers of spring for example have to be fully appreciated or you would go stir crazy