I know this comic has already been posted on lemmy. But it's the only way that I feel captures my feeling, it's like I live on an unspecified timer, everyday, after that I go back to the can.

There's the constant pain, the lack of sleep and/or quality of sleep, waking up everyday like you've been run over by a train.

Then there's the extra sensitivity, and the "electricity", every time I sweat I feel an electric shock in my body. At many points, it feels like an active electric current is being run through my body, like I'm strapped to one of them electric execution chairs.

Then there are the constant brain fog/headaches, no matter what I seem to do, half of my brain is preoccupied with pain in random areas. My brain is like "Hey wassup, I know you're trying to focus,, or sleep, but your left leg is in a g o n y, because no reason really, maybe you moved too much. And so you have exceeded your uhhh free trial of leg for today."

Depression comes in play too, either because I don't go out much because of the pain, or because of the lack of sleep. And then depression fuels anxiety, and they fuel each other, and we have kick started our "mental doom engine."

Then there's the sleep. I have school coming up, it is absolutely necessary that I stick to a schedule, except that won't happen. Because the only way for me to fall asleep, is to be at that point when you're so sleep deprived that you can't keep your eyes open. I have tried at many points to use this my advantage, but it seems like this point is almost always at 5 or 6 AM.

I have abandoned traditional art, and almost anything that involves the use of arms. I can type on the keyboard pretty comfortably because it requires only my wrists and fingers, but even that starts to hurt after a while.

And lastly, it is almost treated as an invisible disability. "Your limbs don't seem to be broken/swelling", "You're not using crutches", "You're not on a wheelchair", and "Fibro my what?". I have been using sticks/staves/brooms in many situations to get up and move, and I use whatever object I can grab and get up with.

Since I grunt all the time, move slowly, use long objects all the time, I have always joked that I feel like an old person. As I'm writing this, my old person knee is acting up for no reason whatsoever, it just likes to be silly at times (night).

Tl;Dr: The comic I posted, I guess.

Thank you for reading.

EDIT

The good ending. All of the responses were to my surprise, overwhelmingly positive! I thank everyone who has commented with their own insights, I learned a lot, remembered a lot, and discovered a lot of things that would help me manage my pain. Thank you all, I wish you all the best of luck

An illustration of a cat wearing funny clothes and hat, while carrying a stringed instrument with 3 strings

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[+] -12 points 1 year ago (5 children)
  • [–] [S] 5 points 1 year ago* (4 children)

    What does that have to do with anything?

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  • [+] -10 points 1 year ago (4 children)
  • [–] 12 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    You're trying to lecture a chronically ill person on their condition and want to make it sound like it's their own fault.

    Cordially: Piss off!

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  • [+] -10 points 1 year ago (1 child)
  • [–] 11 points 1 year ago

    You are always welcome to suggest strategies that may help someone. Diet and exercise are important to keeping a health lifestyle, but do not guarantee health. A perfectly fit person will still experience pain when hit by a bus, and no amount of dieting or exercise can prevent that.

    In contrast, telling a person that their entire medical condition is caused by them being fat and lazy while providing no assistance is inconsiderate and unhelpful.

    I know people with fibromyalgia who were fit and healthy until their pain stole most of their life. Fibromyalgia is not just caused by excess weight. It is the catch-all term for a very large number of undiagnosable conditions, many of which are completely unrelated to lifestyle.

    You have not helped anyone by writing this comment, and the world is no better off as a result of it.

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  • [–] 7 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    Fibromyalgia is term for a wide range of conditions that couldn't be diagnosed because doctors don't understand any of them well enough. Weight has nothing to do with it.

    You're blaming someone's pain on their weight without even seeing them, in a space where they are just trying to talk about it.

    This is victim blaming. They did not cause their pain. It is a medical condition.

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