Stigma Busting: What Having Fibromyalgia is Really Like
Society needs to take this disease seriously, we’re not an effing punchline.
Have you ever gone to bed and woke up feeling like you hadn’t slept at all? “Welcome to adulthood,” an exhausted parent might say, “That’s life,” an overwhelmed teen might reply. Not sleeping well is fairly normal.
But what if you went to bed and woke up so exhausted it felt like you’d run a marathon? What if you woke up feeling like you’d been bound to a 100lb weight, making every movement take an unfeasible amount of effort? What if you woke up hurting all over with your bones feeling like they were going to combust? What if crying upon waking was a pretty normal thing in your life? (I really hope it isn’t.) What if you knew that was the best you’d feel all day?
Would that be hard?
People don’t take fibromyalgia seriously. They hear there’s an invisible disease that can’t be tested for and blame the people whose bodies hurt all over and not the doctors and researchers who aren’t looking for answers. They see what we’re able to squeeze out of our bodies and lives, then say, “fibro-my-lazy,” assuming we just aren’t trying, faking it, or both; when we’re actually all too familiar with also going to bed in tears because there’s always so much more to…
