When one lives with chronic pain non-stop for years on end, it becomes a bit uncomfortable to handle talking to people who are going through some kind of temporary pain. It's not that we don't care, not that we think our pain is soooooo much worse (though sometimes it just may be the truth), but rather the fact that we have learned pain as a language and it is the one we speak most fluently.
We don't have the luxury of feeling it only on occasion. In most cases our pain is the sort that has not left since the day it came on us. That includes our exhaustion too. There is no break. Oh, how we long for those days where we'd get hit with just a simple cold or flu and know that it would break in a few days and we could resume our normal lives.... that's just it... THIS is normal. Feeling flu like, feeling the cramps twist and ache and tear in our muscles and bones, the sensation of eyelids so heavy and begging to close.... the stabs in the ribs and fingers and arches of our feet.... they never go away. They simply move around, or take different forms each day. One day it may be stabbing, the next aching, and still the next a furious storm of a whole bunch of pain we never could imagine existed.
It is our life.
When someone speaks to me about being tired, or having a headache, or what have you, I genuinely care. I honestly wish for that pain to go away. I pray for you. But I don't have words to give you, because I feel it everyday and it's normal to me. I don't remember what it feels like to not have pain, in some kind of form, at all times. I have a hazy memory of being a woman without pain, but the actual physical sensation? Oh, that is long gone.
So when my lips grip in that compressed line when you tell me that you ache, or when I smile tersely, it's not because I don't care. It's because I feel pain everyday and I have no idea what to say to someone who has it in a fleeting fashion.
If I did open my mouth I would likely tell you all about Fibromyalgia and I notice how eyes glaze over when I try to share, or I would try to remind you that it is temporary and point you to the good things, and you would get frustrated because your pain is just as valid as mine is, but I cannot validate it for you.
Your right now pain is my everyday, this is my life pain and I don't know what else to do except tell you it will get better.
Because it will.
You are blessed. You are so very, marvelously lucky that your pain is going to go away.
Do you know that?
Please try to be grateful that your pain will go away. Please try to be grateful that your cold or your flu or your broken bone will heal. You will resume your normal lifestyle. You will still be able to hold down a job, go to weddings, be there for your friends and family, have a social life.... after a few days or weeks of resting.
Please try to think about how you feel at this very moment... sick, in bed, your body demanding things from you that you don't even know how to give....
and realize that that pain, that exhaustion, that "please, please leave me alone" feeling is what we Fibromyalgia sufferers feel every single day of our lives. We feel that way 24;7 with no reprieve and we still have to do things like laundry and dishes and errands and live life.
We have learned to work with it. Ignoring the silent screams and moans that the muscles are screeching. Pretending we are not going to keel over as we stand in the garage talking with the neighbor.
You can't see it. It's invisible. We look spry. We smile, we laugh. We reach for that plate to put our spaghetti dinner on, we may even walk around the block.
That's because we have no choice. If we gave in every time our bodies demanded, we would never move. EVER. That is not an exaggeration.
There is literally no break. We have learned to live this way.
Your pain is just as valid as ours.
I'm sorry you hurt.
But you will get better.
