How Do You Handle The Mental Aspects To Fibro? | MyFibroTeam

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How Do You Handle The Mental Aspects To Fibro?
A MyFibroTeam Member asked a question 💭

I am used to being very active and being able to accomplish my goals quickly. Also have a big case of OCD! Now I can't get pass the extreme exhaustion that happens almost daily. I feel like a failure when I can't even get my house cleaned in a day. Maybe what I'm asking is how did you accept your new normal. Also, how did you get your friends and family to accept your limitations? I am prone to depression and I feel it coming on. Thanks. Wishing you one of your "good"days!

posted January 7, 2018
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A MyFibroTeam Member

For me it was very hard in the first 15 years to accept the limitations with fibro. Always had been very active and worked in a very physically demanding job. Well, I had to come to my senses and pace myself in all activities. Very hard for my husband, family and friends to believe that the former person didn't exist anymore. It took persistence and patience on my side to finally have everybody on the same page. The family members and friends who still don't believe me that it's not all in my head I kinda had to exclude from my life. With fibro you don't need more negativity in your life. It's hard enough to keep on going every day and not have also somebody rain on your parade. You have to make yourself the most important person in your life!

posted August 14, 2019
A MyFibroTeam Member

I can argue against reality and lose. But only 100% of the time. It took me a long time to come to a point of acceptance that this is what it is. That comparing my situation to a preferred situation was just creating mental suffering for myself for no good reason. It's not like my resistance, my resentment and my anger were going to make my fibromyalgia go away. They just made matters worse. So I learned patience, to take pleasure in the things I used to just blithely miss and to treat all the negative emotions as my wounds in need of healing rather than enemies out to get me.

posted April 10, 2018
A MyFibroTeam Member

I am forcing myself to get dressed (not just sweats) and put on my eyebrows and mascara every morning. I used to think why bother when I can't do anything productive anyways!

But just doing those things make a difference!!!

posted March 22, 2018
A MyFibroTeam Member

I answered somewhere earlier on here but I did have a new answer if I didn’t say it earlier! Lol. As far as family goes, sisters brothers parents etc, unfortunately you just have to walk away if they don’t believe you or understand cause usually those people in my experience, will never TRY to understand either!! As far as your own family, husband wives and children, you have to really help them with seeing what this illness is all about! If they will, sit down and talk with them, pull up reports or articles on the computer and get every piece of reading material you can find! If they don’t try to understand then, just give up on them also cause you will only frustrate yourself trying to explain every time something pops up. Cry in front of them, don’t hide in your room because they need to see how bad the pain or other symptoms effect you!! And if they will sit down and talk about it!! For the whole week before, write down every symptom you come across or read on here so when it happens to you they can’t say “oh here we go, another excuse for fibro”. It really hurts when people don’t believe us so it’s the best thing to just let them go or it only causes more stress which we all know means more pain! Good luck!

posted October 17, 2019
A MyFibroTeam Member

Everyone knows what forgiveness is. Yet, when pressed for a specific definition of the word, we may find ourselves repeating platitudes that we, ourselves, may not be convinced by. The Greek for forgiveness is 'apethis' meaning to release, to let go.

Let go of what? In my case, to let go of all the resentment, anger and despair I could otherwise hold against this illness and the situations it lands me in.

Easier said than done, but I find that if I strip away the mental image I have of the illness, how it affects me, how long I have had it, how people misunderstand it, how it impacts me etc I'm just left with the feelings. And they ain't pretty. But they are capable of being seen as wounds, not enemies.

That last point is germane to the entire gig, so worth repeating. Those feelings are not enemies, they are wounds.

So I approach these wounds with complete acceptance of them, and shine the light of compassion and love upon them. I repeat as needed; because this isn't a one-shot deal. Over time, the compassion becomes the prevalent experience because whatever we experience, the relationship we have with it will be our primary experience of it. And that is how I cope with the emotional side of both CPTSD and Fibromyalgia.

posted March 22, 2018

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