3 Reasons to Be Honest About How You’re Feeling

First let me say I am a recovering fixer & have generally learned the lesson about how people often do not want you to “fix” their problems. Usually they just want someone to listen & understand or sometimes they just want to rant. It is much the same as the way we want & even need others to understand what we are going through with Fibromyalgia. Don’t just be dismissive of them because in most cases the small issues these “constant complainers” are complaining about are just as important to them as our FMS symptoms are to us. Honestly I am envious of them and their small issues. Oh but for the day when those will again be the only often  issues I have to deal with!

I’ve mostly learned this about people trough my own experiences with others giving endless advice on ways to “fix” my “issues” when all I wanted was a shoulder to cry on or someone to just listen until I got it out of my system)
That said…
After spending nearly 11 years not complaining or opening up about the related issues & pain from FMS I no longer keep it to myself because I have realized a few of things since I started being open about how I feel:

1) It only makes our pain worse by keeping it all in or faking it (as I did most of the time) because it is an extra & unnecessary effort that causes stress which can & often does cause flair ups.

2) When we do not complain we are doing nothing to increase awareness of Fibro. I am not saying we should whine all day in order to get the word out but if “outsiders” or to be more PC about it “non-sufferers” don’t know how hard it is pn a daily basis (and don’t hear about our bad days (in addition to our good ones) from someone they know who has this illness – someone who can put a face to an invisible illness that they have only heard about through commercials (since the pharmaceutical companies finally realized there was money to be made in finding treatments) or from someone who knows someone then how are those around us, in our lives & the general population ever going to even begin to understand that we may not look sick but we are sick & how will more people ever learn how real FMS is? The more people talk about it and are honest about how they are feeling the sooner people will stop thinking that it is just some psychosomatic issue or that we are all just a bunch of hypochondriac & that the doctors only gave it a name to make us go away.

3) When we stop faking it we end up saving a lot of energy & feel a bit better because faking it takes more out of you than you may realize & pain is exhausting enough on it’s own. We all know that we have enough fatigue as it is not to add to it by faking or hiding the truth.

Note:
I am not talking about constant complaining here – nothing else would come out of our mouths if we complained every time we were in pain! Nor am I talking about becoming one of those draining people who suck your energy dry every time they are around while they fish for sympathy. I am talking about being honest with yourself and others.

Tip: When people say/ask “How are you?/How ya doin? I usually ask them “Do you want the truth or what I tell everybody?” You’d be surprised how many people actually tell you they were just being polite and didn’t really want an answer! Some however want to know the truth. I respect the “not really group & those in the wanting the truth camp I am grateful for because hopefully they will spread the word.

And for now I will step off of my soapbox because sleep is finally calling me.

Good Night or Morning depending on where you are.

~Heather

3AM EST