A...Are There Answers Out There?

If you are like me and have dealt with a chronic illness for years, it’s so easy to want to give up. Day after day, month after month, year after year, we fight and we struggle, but it feels like it’s all in vain! When will our symptoms go away? When will we be able to reclaim our lives? When will all of this finally be behind us?

Unfortunately, the very definition of a chronic illness means that it may never go away. Still, that doesn’t mean we should ever give up on a cure or at least on a better quality of life. Our lives belong to us, NOT to our medical conditions. But if we simply give up, we are handing over ownership to our health problems. Our lives will no longer be our own. We will be slaves to our every little symptom and to the multitude of negative thoughts and emotions that spawn from them.

I don’t know about you, but I’d much rather spend my life searching for answers and end up never finding any. Wasting my life by simply giving up now and wallowing in my chronic illness until the end just isn’t my style. My parents didn’t raise me to be a quitter, and I’m not going to start now. I may always have more than my fair share of defeats, and I might now bounce back as quickly as I’d like. Still, I’m in not just for today’s battle but the long, ugly, drawn-out war.

If you are considering giving up or feel you can’t go on, I encourage you to pause and rest for a moment. Just breathe, exist in the here and now, and don’t worry about the future. Pretend a minute from now doesn’t even exist. Know that you aren’t alone. There are lots of people who understand what you are going through. And we are here for one another.

Rest in that thought for as long as you need and then come back fresh to face the difficult journey again. I once thought that the distance I covered in life is what truly matters. However, fibromyalgia has taught me well that it’s not the distance in your life that is important. It is the life in your life. We may be limited in what we can do now, but are we wholly embracing what we CAN do?

No, living with a chronic condition isn’t easy, but life doesn’t have to end…if we stay strong and determined and if we focus on the good that is still in our lives. Back when my fibro wasn’t so intense I almost never had the chance to write. Now I get to write every day, and I’ve fallen in love with this first love all over again. I still miss the life I had and wish I could be ‘normal’ again. Still, I refuse to dwell on the negative. I WILL have the full and long life I’ve always wanted, no matter what!