Fighting Fibro with Fire

I’ve been silent for too long. Somehow, amidst all the changes I’ve been making in my life, I managed to slide back into my old habit of silence. I’ve never been very good at talking to people; I hate letting others see my emotions, the messy ones, at least. I’m ok with sharing happiness and laughter, but when it comes to pain and tears, I’d much rather deal with them on my own. The problem with this is that I tend to get stuck in an endless loop of misery. The fibro provides its own seemingly endless cycle of misery, I don’t need to add to it by being depressed.

I imagine that just about anyone with a chronic illness/condition knows how easy it is to slip into a self-imposed solitary confinement. It’s so very easy to forget that you’re not alone, especially when being social takes so much effort. I’ve never been a social butterfly, even before the fibro came into my life, it took a lot of energy for me to be around people, especially people I don’t know very well. Having fibromyalgia makes it so much harder, being sociable, even with those closest to me takes up  a lot of spoons. Add in a few negative emotions and it’s just a downward spiral.

So… here I am, attempting to ward off any impending depression by breaking my silence. Despite the fact that I have family and friends who love me and who would do just about anything for me, I feel alone. It’s not that I’m in pain, in fact, my pain is the lowest it’s been in years. It’s not altogether gone, but having spent the last few years living with a daily pain level of 7/10 or higher, my current average of 3/10 is practically paradise. I should be ecstatic. Yet, here I am, feeling overwhelmed and bordering on depressed.

I’ll be honest, I don’t want to discuss most of the reasons that I’m feeling this way. I’m just not ready to put everything on display, I may never be. Talking about my experiences with fibro and life in general is one thing, but for now, everything else will remain behind the curtain. The important thing is that I do know (mostly), why I feel the way I do right now, and I really am trying to fix what I can and come to terms with what I can’t fix.

Why bother posting about it all if I’m not going to explain it? Because I can still write about how I’m feeling, even if I don’t want to explain why I’m feeling it. I know, it’s kind of like showing someone a mystery box and saying “do not open!”, which for some, is just about the meanest thing I could do. Being an overly curious person myself, I know how annoying that is, and I do apologize.

On the upside, writing this has made me feel a little bit better, and I’m reminded of why I started writing this blog in the first place. Holding all of these crappy feelings in is part of the reason my life got out of control to begin with; if I had just been brave enough to talk to someone, I probably wouldn’t have ended up in that dark place where I was contemplating suicide. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, I will NEVER go back to that place ever again.

Positive thinking may not cure the fibro, but it will keep me alive :). In the words my favorite cartoon fish: “Just keep swimming”.