Five on Friday: Bringing you 5 somethings each and every Friday

Here are some things I’ve learned from my experiences with “Fibromyalgia.”

1. Fibromyalgia is NOT incurable. When I was diagnosed with it back in 2002, (at the age of 25) the specialist I saw at the University of Miami who had been doing extensive studies on it, didn’t have much good news for me. She said, “Make friends with Advil.” Um, hello? What kind of life is that? My mom and I looked at each other and knew that we would figure out some other way to heal myself from the pain my body was going through. Advil is great and all. But I wasn’t going to be taking that for the rest of my life. No way. And I DID figure it out. And I don’t have fibromyalgia anymore. Ta-da!!
2. I’ve had a lot of anger. ALL of my Fibro-related body pain was as a result of my emotional state. Especially my anger. And the anger that I cared not to acknowledge because it was too crazy and scary and upsetting. And I hesitate to say anything hokey like “Getting in touch with my anger cured me,” but in some ways it did. And because it was so instrumental in curing me, that makes it awesome and not hokey at all. Anger is a powerful thing. And because my mind thought it woud be too scary to deal with the anger, it created physical body pain to distract me from the emotional issues.
3. My body is trying to help me. When it acted up and was in incredible pain, it was really just trying to protect me from things it thought would be much more uncomfortable for me. Namely painful emotions. Don’t pay attention to those yucky emotions. Just pay attention to this pain in your body instead. (Distract, Distract. Pay no attention to that thing you want so badly that I’m hiding behind my back. Eat this lollipop instead.) Also, in case you haven’t noticed, it’s much more socially acceptable to say that you’re too sore and tired to go out and do something with your friends than it is to say, “Sorry, can’t do that because I’m a raging bitch underneath all of this and I don’t have control of my emotions.” So the body pain also made it easier for me to say No to things. Which brings me to the next thing…
4. Body pain gave me an excuse. And at the time, I needed one. I didn’t grow up feeling confident in saying No to other people. Mostly I said yes to everything and I wound up sacrificing myself and my happiness. Sometimes in some pretty big ways. It got so bad (my inability to say no) that I actually wound up having sex with a guy I didn’t want to have sex with…and I was severely truamatized by it and soon after that’s when all my Fibromyalgia and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome symptoms started and then stuck around for several years. I did not feel safe saying no. My body collapsed with all the symptom to try to help me stay safe, stay indoors, stay away from people, and curl up in a corner and heal and take care of myself. Ultimate excuse: my body won’t let me.
5. We are “meant” to be free and clear. It’s not okay to have chronic pain in the body. Yes, sometimes that’s “what is” so it’s okay in that sense, but it’s neither normal, nor natural to have chronic pain. When there’s chronic pain, something is OFF. Outside of structural abnormalities, there’s no reason for chronic pain. Especially the pain associated with Fibromyalgia. There’s nothing structural happening with that kind of pain. That means something else is causing it.  I didn’t want to look at the mind/body connection for a whole year when I was first diagnosed. (Nothing wrong over here with my mind thank you very much!) But ultimately it was working with my mind and my emotions that healed me. That’s what did it. When you have things that hurt for long periods of time, it’s a signal that something is off. The body is trying to get back to its natural state of feeling good – and it needs our emotions to be on board with the plan.

I’m now a HUGE fan of emotional wellness. Understanding myself and what I’m feeling. Understanding the beliefs that lead me to feel certain things. Sometimes I feel bad, sometimes I feel angry, sometimes I feel weird or confused. But there’s no reason to stay that way chronically. Chronic anything is a huge wake up call for me now. It’s a wake up call to look at my inner world. My emotions. My feelings. To acknowledge and love them.

1. Fine Young Cannibals: Growing up, I hated the “She Drives Me Crazy” video because of the way he moved his mouth (especially his upper lip) on his jagged teeth. It gave me the creeps. Just watched a minute of it again, and…well, I still don’t like it.
2. Robert Palmer: What’s up with women dancing and not being happy about it? Simply Irresistible has gobs of women in it dancing around and doing sexy things and they’re all straight faced and looking mean. I think seeing this video when I was a developing girl contributed to my thinking that dancing was dumb and bad. Good thing I’ve since discovered Zumba!
3. Faith No More: This video made my mom hate that I wanted to watch MTV when I was 13. Even though I dug the song at the time, I felt sorry for the fish at the end. And I really liked it when Pauly Shore did his commentary over this video. Something about *weasles*!
   Note: To be fair to Faith No More, anything Madonna did was a huge reason my mom didn’t like MTV. And to be fair to my mom, I didn’t really like MTV all that much anyway. I just wanted to be able to watch it if my friends were watching it so they didn’t think I was lame.
   
4. David Lee Roth: Too many (very scary) wardrobe changes. ‘Nuff said.
5. Milli Vanilli: I resent the music video for “Girl You Know It’s True” because I liked that song when it was out. A lot. And the video was the thing that made everyone criticize them for lip-syncing. Then I felt like I shouldn’t like them anymore. But I still did. I just didn’t tell anyone.

Any music videos you need to whine about for at least 2.2 seconds?

I’m starting a new Friday tradition for the blog. (Saweet!)

Each “Five On Friday” will bring you an awesome new list of 5.

Maybe 5 recipes. 5 jokes. 5 cool links. 5 juicy bits from my week. Or 5 randomites like tonight’s list. (And of course I’ll take requests.)

So here goes Five On Friday #1!

1. Have you eaten fresh plums and nectarines chopped up in a white bowl with a blue rim? It’s worth doing at least once.

2. Airbags used to be reserved exclusively for Drivers. Everyone else could fly out the window. Good luck. But the Drivers…those folks were given a little face pillow so that they could survive. Only so that society could later feel vindicated by putting them in jail.

3. Sitting in a parking lot in the back seat of a white Camry. Knees curled up against the back of the front seat. The car is running. The heat is on. It’s 10:12 pm. Staring out the back window you watch the women walk by. That One bounces up and down in her high heeled boots, dry cleaned slacks, and sand colored trench coat. Her dark tries to keep up with her and she thinks about how great her life is. Or how she doesn’t want to go home to her cats again. I couldn’t tell.

4. This One walks looking down at her legs. She likes what she sees. Her legs. Her socks. Her very striped, very high knee socks. Her funny little shoes. Oh, and her knee caps! She sees the hem of her skirt above her knee. She walks face down with a smile inside. It’s been a while since she felt so proud of herself. She walks looking at her legs and her striped knee-high socks so that she can remember she’s good and everything is okay.

5. Our friend came over and was sitting at my desk. Here’s a snippet of chatter…

Friend: You have a lot of pens.

Me: Yeah, I love pens.

Friend: You must have a lot going on in your mind.

Me: <Wait. Is he saying he doesn’t like pens?>