📝 Struggles of acceptance
I stumbled upon this post on r/fibromyalgia, titled “How long did it take you to accept it?”. As I'm writing this, I'm still processing both the post and the comments; at the same time, feeling relieved that it's a lot more common to struggle to accept this fucking syndrome.
Knowing I'm not one of the few who struggle with accepting this and all the limitations it imposes is like taking weight off my chest. And to be honest, I don't think I'll ever fully accept this. Why would I? To me, that's like giving up, conceding defeat.
Yes, I still cling to the hope that either a cure will be found or a medication will be developed that actually stops the pain. Or that the pain might one day stop by itself, just like it started.
Accepting it would mean I've given up on hope.
Of course, this doesn't mean I haven't adapted. I've developed strategies to deal with the pain level I'm feeling as I perform whatever task I'm doing and how it changes as I execute it.
A good example of this is cooking. Even if I'm just cooking a simple stew, there are days that I have to start cooking it 4 to 6 hours before the usual time and do it in small steps, with long periods of rest in between, because standing up for 10 minutes feels like torture. Think: “Getting the pan out and the ingredients. Rest. Chop some ingredients. Rest. Chop more ingredients. Rest.”
This may not make sense to you. That's OK. It probably wouldn't make sense to me either if I didn't live with nonstop pain.