If you're not aware of how fibromyalgia "works", it can flare up - and sometimes for no reason at all.  But, my most recent flare up happened because of the sudden drop in temperature and being up to my knees in snow.  I love snow, so I had to go out in it and experience it but what I didn't expect was to be in excruciating pain for the best part of two weeks.  I've been diagnosed for only 6/7 months so I'm still finding out what my body doesn't like.
This flare up hit me really hard. I can deal with the odd days on the varying scale of pain being worse but when I'm waking up in the morning for a reasonable period of time feeling no better I can't help but feel defeated. I try and take as much of this illness on the chin as I can but when I'm in agony my brain takes me to all the places that I feel sad and low about to distract from it.  It reminds me of all the things that have changed and what is different for me now.  Want to enjoy the snow? - no dice, you'll pay for it. Want to remember all the other things you can no longer do, and all the things you won't be able to in the future? - Here you go, served on a silver platter of misery.
2018 has got off to an unyieldingly shite start. I have also been having stomach problems since the beginning of January - for which I still have no answers, but it's looking likely to be gallstones. Gallstones at 26? - who knew that could be a thing, but medically, symptomatically it is the thing that makes most sense. Along with a good old flare up of irritable bowel on the side (comes with the Fibro - but I already had it before, so dial it up from 10 of where it used to be). Along with family illness and my partner having a stomach ulcer - it has been a tough ride so far.
I've just read back what I've written so far, and it just reads like a big ball of negativity.  I'm in a hole with it at the moment and writing about it is helping dig me out.  I don't care if absolutely no-one reads this either. It's for my own sanity.
Everyone talks about the power of positive thinking, and a lot of what is suggested to me when I admit that I'm feeling crap is to think positively. I know it's coming from a good place but it doesn't always help. I want my negative feelings to be heard and taken with serious consideration. I want it to feel like it's okay to feel that way and that I'm not failing myself for it. That I'm not failing for not being able to stay positive at all times.  I don't want to discuss it with my Dr because they'll just want to give me an anti-depressant, but I'm not depressed as such. I've been depressed before and medicated for it so to me that isn't the issue, to me my mental health seems intact.  When I was depressed before it was like nothing and anything could make me feel down. This time I feel I have a reason for it and it feels a lot different to me. They're two separate entities. I'm still able to see and feel joy in good things, but the fibro is undoubtedly ruining the life that I wanted to have. I'm struggling with motivation and losing seeing the point in things, but it is because of my fibromyalgia. When I dream of the future I still see myself as healthy in that future, and adjusting that to make room for my chronic pain seems like I have to settle for less, or that it'll have to be a lesser version of that.  Of course that makes me sad. I can turn it around and make myself feels positive for it, but I need time and space to be sad about it too.
I've been off work for a considerable amount of time due to my fibromyalgia and struggling to get a grip of it, and this week only realised that I'm 'running out of time'. I need to get my ass back to work, or soon i'll have no money coming in. Not ideal when you've got a mortgage etc. So even though I still feel lost and in pain I have to go back. I'm terrified that I'm going to end up how I felt before I took leave. I can't live like that again. I was barely surviving, barely living.  In so much pain, forcing myself to go to work, even though I couldn't keep up. Going to bed as soon as I got home. I am going to return on reduced hours, but part of me is so scared that I still won't be able to keep up.  I need to get out of a target based job because while I never let my quality suffer - productivity is obviously an issue when you're dealing with being in pain and struggling to think straight, both due to that pain and due to the 'fog' that fibro gives you.
I have such fear. Fear for the present and future. At this point I don't know exactly how to combat that fear but I am going to try. I already feel a bit better saying it all 'out loud'.