my outlook...

Yes, this really is my blog. I have been gone, suffering thru many, many new tests and many, many new diagnoses. The change in my blog reflects my "being" presently. Out of sorts, maybe, and all over the place.

A little dark and cloudy. But, with remembrances of my beloved desert home, which I shall be leaving by the years end. A sky filled with lightning, with upheaval, with some foreboding of what may come.

I hurt constantly now. I am so tired, so very, very tired. Life has gotten to be almost more than I can bear at times. But, I reach for my happy face to put on when its needed and just curl up and hide otherwise. My emotions are all over the place. I might look and sound perfectly fine one moment and in tears the next.

But you all know this place. It is a world that we all reside in at times. It just seems to be taking over more and more of late...

Thank you -- it's all I've got

I want to thank all of you who have commented on my blog of late. And, thank you to those signing up to follow my blog for that very special gift.

I have been, and I still am, in a very hard place. Your words have comforted me more than you could know. Its funny, I really don't find it difficult to open up here in this place of absolute wide open public exposure. I find that rather astounding, don't you?

Well, you shouldn't. It is because of you that I feel safe and protected and un-judged. Yes, I know there is no such word (well, in most dictionaries), but there certainly is the feeling. I know that no matter what I say, you will not judge me. I am simply saying how I feel and what I am thinking. Unvarnished, unadulterated, bold faced truth. My truth, anyway, at a given point in time. And, I thank you so much for allowing me that. Somehow it lifts some of the weight of the unending pain and exhaustion.

Your comments don't make the pain go away. They don't refresh the unyielding fatigue. But, they sure do fill me up. They fill me with up with a warmth of support and understanding. They make me smile, they touch my heart. They do revive me to fight thru another minute, hour, day.

So, thank you. Thank you 100 times over for taking the time to leave a little bit of you with me -- to help me persevere, to keep me company, if only for a moment, and to help me lean back from that slippery, dark, deep hole.

Thank you.
me,
CJ

Do-overs

It is amazing to me how much all of us FM/CF sufferers have in common. We share so many of the same thoughts and feelings, coping mechanisms and non-coping mechanisms, ups and downs, ins and outs. So many of us are the Type quadruple A personality. We used to "do" and now we can't, and it makes it all so much harder. My family used to tell me I was burning the candle at both ends and in the middle, too. I was going to burn myself out...Do you suppose that is what I did? Burned myself out and now the jokes on me? OMG what a horrible thought! Can I have do-overs?

Many times over the last five years, egad! going on six years, since I was "labeled" as having Fibro I have wished to the heavens I could go back and take better care of myself , make better choices, evaluate and make better decisions. YOUNG PEOPLE OUT THERE--WARNING!!! YOU REALLY DO TAKE BETTER CARE OF YOUR FAMILY IF YOU TAKE CARE OF YOURSELF FIRST!!!

Another old joke: If I can't be a good example then I can , at least, serve as a horrible warning.

I am not, for one instant, implying that I think I brought Fibro on to myself. No, what I am beating myself up with is the fact that because I was in lousy shape before I got Fibro that I have made it triply hard to manage it now. I never dealt with stress so, as a result, I have several other physical conditions that are associated with stress and with not taking care of my health in general, like not regularly exercising, not eating healthy, and not dealing with stress!

Now those health problems are in a vicious cycle with themselves. The medicines cause side effects that aggravate this, which also makes that worse, and this issue makes it nearly impossible to exercise which affects my eating habits because I am depressed, which makes me eat too many carbs, which makes me gain weight, which aggravates those two problems which scares me and initiates the anxiety and drops me deeper into the hole of depression which affects my sleep that is also affected by the fibro and makes me sooo tired and the chronic fatigue and increased pain cause that last domino to tip and.....

You have self-imploding CJ.

Stop the world, I want to get off.

Later,

me

CJ

p.s. I have been alone a lot lately and have been quite introspective. Please don't think I am sitting back letting things happen to me. I have been observing and scrutinizing my life of late. I am still working on this "thing" and trying to determine the best way for me to attack it.

I have had a lot of input from family and friends and fellow Fibro patients. A lot. I appreciate the information, I really do. But simply because it worked for so and so does not mean it will work for me. I want to continue receiving the input, but please, all of you out there that mean well, give us information, support us, but please don't judge us.

This is a complex, confounding array of symptoms. It is debilitating and, as of today, incurable. It’s not possible that you used to have it, but now after your treatment you are cured. I am elated for you that you are no longer in pain from whatever it was you had. But, don't judge me because I don't jump on the band wagon of your "cure". I have tried so many, many things over these five plus years. I may have tried your solution, I may have not. And, I may have not because it is too expensive. It might not have coordinated with the myriad of other "conditions" I have. You really don't know and I don't want to list everything I have tried and you sure the heck do not want to hear about all the things I have tried. So, please continue to offer me information and most importantly offer me your support. But, please don't judge me. I am doing the best that I can.

Can I just be done now?

So, how full of myself did I sound in that last blog? I really was not trying to brag, boast, whatever. This whole blog thing is a journal of sorts for me-which I assume it is for many of you. I am really floundering in this new life. I am clinically depressed, I know that since I am being treated for it. And, I am in that place where I can't see myself ever doing anything but very minimal self/home maintenance. I can do the laundry, pick up around the house (but can no longer clean it myself), I can go to the grocery, do some cooking--but don't often. I cannot see myself being productive at all, can't see myself contributing or making a difference. So, I listed all the things I could remember I did, hoping I could say "See, you can do it, you did it". But all that did is say "Yeah, you did all that stuff then...but you can't do squat now." Useless, taking up space. For what? For my kids. I don't want to mess them up any more than I may have already. My husband? He would be ever so much better without me. I guess you aren't supposed to talk about stuff like this out in the "web". I don't know. Its how I'm feeling. Its what I am thinking. Not in a good place.

The fatigue is killing me. When I stand up I feel like I have 100 pound weights hanging on my arms and legs. I can barely make it across the floor to the other side of the room. People think I exaggerate--but I DON"T! I never thought a person could be sooo tired and sooo weak. And, if tomorrow I am up walking around easily people will say"I knew it wasn't that bad.Brother!!" But it WAS that bad and tomorrow or tonight or this afternoon it may be that bad again. "Yeah, yeah. What a hypochondriac!" DAMN this Fibro! Sometimes I wish it would just do me in so I could be done. And, so everybody else could be done, too. DAMN IT! damn it...damn it...damn it.

Later,
me
CJ,in time (really? when???)