With some trepidation I have decided that I must write about my battle with Fibromyalgia, to share with you experiences that even my own family does not know about. It's not to evoke sympathy but to be able to vent my frustrations and helplessness when this evil cloud descends upon me as it has been doing with frightening frequency lately. Also I want TRY to blog a daily record during these episodes so that I can compare them and perhaps find some commonality in order to see if there are any contributing factors that I would be able to either adjust or avoid. The episodes are similar if not identical as far as my recollection is at this moment and as my latest fog is lifts.
My whole life is affected and compressed into days of 'living' on the sofa and barely able to get up to make meals which severely affects my nutrition during this time. I remember once getting up to get a meal and by the time I got to the kitchen I hurt so bad I just turned around and went back to lie down. Needless to say feeling like this and lack of hunger has affected my weight to such a degree that I'm only 2 pounds away from my all time lowest adult weight and am presently10 pounds less than my obese 11-year old body weight that was written in my school record.
My mental status is affected and definitely not sharp and I cannot think straight. In fact my ability to be able to think of doing more than one thing at a time is pretty much impossible like making a list or plan a trip downtown to do an errand or two. I do not and cannot do anything but lie on the sofa, go to the bathroom as needed (I'm thankful for small mercies!!), get some food/drink and sit in the recliner for short periods of time. There is no energy in my muscles, my limbs and body feel heavy. I can barely read for more than a few minutes because my arms hurt to hold up reading material or it just doesn't hold my interest. I do not have the will to even pick up the phone and talk to anyone. Who would want to listen? Most of my outside activities and responsibilities are left undone. Blogging or any work on the computer is minimal including answering or sending email for the reasons that I'm too tired and it's painful, I can't think, ergo I make mistakes and the biggy.... I JUST DON'T CARE.
Now that's a very scary thing to admit not only to myself but to my global audience but it might answer a few questions you may have had about the quality or topics of my blogs at times and the occasional no-show. If you haven't noticed perhaps I'm either really good at covering up or I'm really awful anyway....[poking fun at self is always good therapy :o)]
I have argued with myself back and forth as to whether this is a form of depression or not. I do not feel emotionally depressed in the sense of the word that I'm crying, having suicidal thoughts or feel any sense of hopelessness. That's what makes me rule out clinical depression and also the fact that so far it has limited itself to 1-3 days or 5-10 days at a time although winter episodes are longer. My biggest argument against depression is that the onset seems to coincides with low pressure weather; rain in summer and snow in winter.
I am hopefully looking at my latest episode in the rear view mirror now. I wanted to blog this today to get this preliminary 'heads up' out of the way while still fresh in my mind and that I wouldn't be able to do when I was down and out.
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