Letting Go

Fibromyalgia is a mysterious condition. Many people don't even think it's real. It gets made fun of by families of people who have it. It gets made fun of by doctors. It gets made fun of by people on the internet. People are told it's all in your head. People are told they are faking it.

We are known as complainers and whiners. We are given all sorts of advice about what we need to do ranging from suck it up to push yourself to vitamins to lose weight to gluten-free diets to Mucinex to stress relief.

I have some thoughts and beliefs about Fibro that are not scientific; they are what I believe is true for me. It may not be true for others, but I have seen it in me and I have seen some common themes in people who have Fibro.

I believe I have had it my entire life to some degree. I think stress and the cummulative nature of life brought it to a very acute and debilitating stage a few years ago, but I think it was always in my body.

I was always a tired person and my body always hurt. I never stayed up late like the other kids. As a silly example, I remember the movie The Ten Commandments. I never could see the end of it because it was on until 11 pm from 6 pm. I always fell asleep.

In school, I always went to bed early and I always had a hard time getting up in the morning and I was always tired in school all day every day. I never remember feeling rested. I remember distinctly telling myself to go to sleep when Johnny Carson was on because I would be tired the next day. But I was still tired. I would take naps after school in my school clothes because I was so tired.

I also believe that people with Fibro are sensitive. Sensitive to the point of being empaths. We take in the emotions of the room. Many people with Fibro have abuse in their childhoods. I do not. However, I grew up with an alcoholic father and a very codependent mother. I craved attention that was unavailable to me.

Alcoholics are very selfish by nature. My dad used to want me in the room with him, but he didn't want to talk. He would literally say, "Suz, don't talk a lot."

My mother is the worst listener on the planet. It's not her fault. She grew up with alcoholics and married an alcoholic. She trained herself to tune people out. Whenever I would try to talk to my dad, and he would say antagonistic things, she would tell me, he's drunk, don't listen to him; tune him out.

My brothers were fun to be around, but they had their own friends as they got older and went out more. I was a loner and stayed home more.

Life was never relaxed. It was nice, but it revolved around my dad. Tiptoeing around him and how he would react to things. I realize now that where I found fun was in 2 places. With food and in my room with music dancing. Those were 2 places I felt loved and free. I was always a skinny kid so food never seemed like problem back then. Although digestively, and emotionally it was.

I believe that what a Fibro body does is store your stress and tension in your muscles. Your body helps you and hurts you at the same time. It takes all its empathy and sensitivity and it has your organs and systems like your digestive system and your muscular/skeletal system and even your sleep try to compensate for all of the stimulation that you are getting.

Your systems are getting overloaded and overstimulated and they try to help you in any way they can figure out to help you. They clench, they block, they shut down, they get sick, they scream, they get your attention or they become invisible.

I never got sick in the normal way. Whenever I got sick as a kid or an adult, I got sick in a spectacular way. I got 3 week ear infections or 18 day shingles.

I developed coping mechanisms for shutting out stimulation that I didn't even know I did. I always sit facing away from the door so I don't see all the people coming in and out. I don't watch the news.

As I am making improvements with my training, I'm learning more about my Fibro. I would love nothing more than to not have it, but I do.

It's so much better now and I'm managing it better, but I have an irrational fear of people thinking, "See, you were just fat, you didn't really have Fibro. You just needed to lose weight."

But it's so much more than losing weight. I still have pain underneath; it's still there. It just doesn't radiate to the outer layers of muscle, which makes it feel so much better. So much better! That didn't happen when I lost a lot of weight. It didn't happen until I started training.

The training is also doing something that I don't think happens with everyone who trains. It's releasing emotional pain. I believe really old emotional pain.  And it's doing that in stages. It happened quite a bit when I first started training. It was shocking back then.

It happened again a few months later. And it's happening again now. For some reason I thought Khris made the workouts harder in these times. But I think it's my body. I asked Khris if things got harder last week. He said they always get progressively harder. So I think my body just decided that it's time to let go again so it seems harder to me.

He said I should always come in everyday wondering if I will make it through the workout. That's good for me to know. I actually do think that mentally; I love pushing my body in training,  but there comes a time every few months that my body decides to let go of some new things.

It decides to shed some more. I get extra tired after the workouts. I get extra weak during the workout. I get sore. My body just doesn't feel right.

I let go of lots of tears of joy, and tears that I don't know what they are from in the locker room and in the car and at home during those weeks.

I may come into my workouts wondering if I'll make it through, but I have no doubt that I will make it through my new way of being this time because I am completely letting go. I feel as free in my workouts as when I was in my room dancing as a kid. And I feel as loved eating good food now as I did eating bad foods before. I have never let go this much before. Keep opening up muscles!! I'm ready!