FM: Without Pictures

Greetings,

So, today (12 May 2013) is Fibromyalgia Awareness Day, who knew right? I am sure that there are some of my readers out there who knew. There is part of the problem. So, rather than my recently frequent ramblings about motivational subjects and various other bits and pieces, I decided it is time to get back "on point" and talk about fibromyalgia. More to the point some important factors which make it such an invisible illness. Pictures.

Who has seen pictures of cancers? Who has seen pictures of broken bones? Who has seen pictures of burst blood vessels resulting in strokes? I am sure that we all have in the media in some form or another. How about this, who has seen a picture of the effect of FM? On an X-ray? On an ultra-sound? I will bet that most have not. This is one of the things that makes FM one of the "invisible illnesses".

We do not have pictures that we can show people to show them the evidence of what is going on with us. In a very visual world this is a problem. We have not shocking pictures to show. People do not see what is going on inside us, so people do not see what is happening, as a result we are invisible. We do have pain, unfortunately the cause is untraceable. We cannot show a broken bone, an inflamed tendon or anything else for that matter so it is hard to say what is going on. More to the point it is hard to have people know what is going on.

What makes it worse is that because we have no pictures, we often find it hard to tell people what is going on. People have a hard time believing in what they cannot see. Because we are not in pain all of the time it does not get seen. When we are in pain due to the previous we get accused of calling attention to ourselves or faking it. Why? Because the cause cannot be seen. Sure people who know us know what is going on, but they have to know us really well to really understand. We fear that there is always the behind closed doors, "I think so-and-so is faking it." is said. Even when there is pain all of the time it is still difficult to see what is going on, so we have the same results.

This is the way it is, so what can we do about it? How many of the people you know have heard of fibromyalgia? How many people you know, know what fibromyalgia is? If you are reading this and have FM, how many of the people that know you understand what you go through? The only way that this is going to change is by making it more visible. We need to tell people who know us what is going on and make them understand what is going on. We need to tell more people about this problem and that it does exist. The least thing that can happen is that one person that you know will better understand you, and that is a start.

So what am I doing? Recently I have decided to make this blog go public. Before it was a more personal thing and was shared here and there. These days I publicise it through Google+ whenever I make a post. I also publicise this blog through Facebook. I encourage you to help me with this and do the same thing, even if you only find one thing helpful or useful or interesting or which hits home to you. Share it. More to the point, if you find others doing the same thing, do the same for them. If you find groups supporting those with FM, publicise them. If you have friends or relations with FM tell them about these sites and groups, it can only help.

Oh, and one more thing, have a great day reader, and thank you for taking your precious time to read this. Your encouragement helps me, and that encouragement helps me write, and I hope that this helps those who read it.

Cheers,

Henry.