Don’t focus on the fibromyalgia…”minimize it”, I wrote in my last blog post Minimize It. The idea is to limit (or “minimize”) fibromyalgia to just being as small a part of your life as it can be…and limit it to being ONLY one part of your life (not overruling everything).
Limit it. Compartmentalize it. “Minimize it.”!
I know, I know…if only it was that easy… It isn’t easy, but for every bit that I manage to do it, I get far more in return. For me, thinking of “minimizing it” has become a way to help keep fibromyalgia in a limited role in my life. I think of it as being just one (small) part of my life and this has helped to reduce its power over me.
(Fibromyalgia doesn’t define me.)
But even more than thinking of fibromyalgia as being just a small part of my overall life…I try to go one step further and… actually I try not to think of it at all!
So let me explain.
Now, that’s pretty difficult to not think of fibromyalgia while experiencing symptoms day-in day-out, but there is one thing (and this is my own personal preference) that has helped me more than anything else to not to be so preoccupied with my fibromyalgia symptoms.
I’ve been somewhat secretive about having fibromyalgia (and even with those that know, I don’t talk about it much).
Again, this is a personal thing…different things will work for different people of course and there are definitely positives and negatives to this approach. The biggest negative that I can think of is it possibly limits support that you might get and that may be a deal-breaker on this idea for many. But I wanted to mention it because, overall, I’ve been happy I chose this route.
Granted, there are times when someone complains I’m late for some party and I think…if they only knew how hard it is for me to get there at all!…but how could they?…since I don’t tell anyone! And sometimes I just wish people knew how hard I have to work just trying to have a “normal” life…but… I can’t have it both ways!
I didn’t start out to keep it a secret.
But I’d been down this road before, more than once…distraught, dealing with symptoms for months waiting for a diagnosis of some sort. Telling people… I am upset and worried (myself) at that point, and having others know and ask about it (even though I know they are well-meaning) only adds to my upset (again, my personal reaction). I see my worry mirrored on their faces and that makes me feel more worried.
Their sympathy makes me feel weak and vulnerable…that isn’t how I need to feel to fight this thing…I need to feel strong and invincible. Also, they draw my attention to it when I may be trying to forget (I may not want to be reminded of and talk about my health problems at a party!). And, what if, when I find out what is wrong, it’s not something that I had wanted everyone to know? But because I’ve told people something was wrong, now I have to explain more…
Yes, I learned a long time ago, that I prefer to keep it to myself till I find out exactly what I’m dealing with.
So by the time I reached the fibromyalgia stage of my life, I had reached the point where I would usually tell very few (often no-one besides my husband) people when I was in that situation of knowing something is wrong, but not knowing what exactly is wrong. I wait till I feel in control emotionally of the situation and after I have a diagnosis and know exactly what I’m dealing with, before I tell others (IF I tell others), so their reactions can’t upset me and my recovery.
In the case of fibromyalgia, it took months to get my diagnosis and by then, I was on my way to dealing with it fairly well with my “combat mode” without many others knowing.
Then it became a question of when to tell anyone (besides some family and one close friend I had confided in)…I mean, when does that come up? Do I just come out with it in the middle of some social function? That felt awkward to me plus I didn’t really feel like talking about it at a social function…I was having a good time and enjoying a break from it. I was glad people didn’t know. I wasn’t ashamed or embarrassed. It’s just that I found in the past that if others knew about a health condition, they would ask how I was (well-meaning, of course), which would make me feel like I was a sick person, when maybe I was having a day when I felt great and had managed to forget about it!
It kind of keeps your mind-set in sick mode because everyone keeps putting that on you, instead of the healthy mode mind-set that I was striving for. I think of myself as healthy, even more important I don’t think of myself as sick! Besides, when others saw me as healthy and “normal”, it made me feel that way. I draw support from others more in this indirect way; they may not know it but they give me a nice break from my fibromyalgia life in that I get to be just healthy and “normal” for that time.
Yes, I just didn’t feel the need to tell people and deal with THEM dealing with MY fibromyalgia.
I have refused to be defined by this fibromyalgia thing…by myself or anyone else.
FIBROMYALGIA DOESN’T DEFINE ME. PERIOD.
Again, this secretiveness is my own personal preference, but what I know is real is that it has helped me immensely to KEEP THE CONTROL (over my mind-set) in my court, which, for me, has been crucial to dealing with fibromyalgia. I find that I generally draw my strength from within and it is easier to draw on that strength and keep focused on combating fibromyalgia without the distractions that others bring.
You may want more direct support from others and that is great too. You should definitely do whatever works for you and gives you strength and find your own ways of “minimizing it”.
