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A friend sent me this, thought you'd all like it.

FIBROMYALGIA TALKS TO YOU

Hi! My name is Fibromyalgia and I'm YOUR invisible chronic illness. I

am now velcro'ed to you for life. Others around you can't see me or

hear me, but YOUR body feels me. I can attack you anywhere and anyhow I

please. I can cause you severe pain or, if I'm in a good mood, I can

just cause you to ache all over. Remember when you and Energy ran

around together and had fun? I took Energy from you and gave you

Exhaustion (the chronic fatigue that I send to follow you with this).

Try to have fun now! I also took Good Sleep from you and, in its place,

gave you Brain Fog (when you can't remember what you were talking about

5 minutes before). I can make you tremble internally or make you feel

cold or hot when everyone else feels normal. Oh, yeah, I can make you

feel anxious or depressed too. If you have something planned, or are

looking forward to a great day, I can take that away too.

You didn't ask for me. I chose you for various reasons: that virus you

had that you never recovered from, or that car accident, or maybe it was

the years of abuse, trauma or stress. Well anyway, I'm here to stay! I

hear you're going to see a doctor who can " get rid " of me. I'm rolling

on the floor, laughing. Just try! You will have to go to many, many

doctors until you find one who even BELIEVES I EXIST. You will be put

on pain pills, sleeping pills, energy pills or shots, told you are

suffering from anxiety or depression, given a TENs unit, get massaged,

told if you just sleep and exercise more, I will go away, told to think

positive, poked, prodded, and MOST OF ALL, laughed at when you tell the

doctor I am debilitating.

Your family, friends and co-workers will all listen to you until they

just get tired of hearing about how I make you feel, and that I'm a real

disease. Some of them will say things like, " Oh, you're just having a

bad day, " or " Well, remember, you can't do the things you use to do 20

YEARS AGO, " not hearing that you said 20 days ago. Some will just

start talking behind your back, " All she does is whine, " or " She sure is

a hypochondriac. " Slowly you will feel that you are losing your dignity

trying to make them understand, especially, when you are in the middle

of a conversation with a " normal " person, and can't remember what you

were going to say next! Eventually most of them will be like all the

doctors who say, " It's all in your head. "

In closing (I was hoping that I kept this part a secret), but I guess

you already found out...the ONLY please you will get any support and

understanding in dealing with me is with other people with Fibromyalgia.