[Sugah]

Hi, anna... I feel your pain, quite literally. It is frustrating, after having gone through a "good" period with the FMS, to face its seeming unmanageability again. Like you, I learned its rhythms and my flares were few and far between. Then life changed, and it's been more or less constant for the last couple of months. I don't have the options I had for slowing down or taking it easy - unless I plan to give up a whole lot of opportunities that I've accepted and take on the consequences that would result from that (like a credit hit for a car I had to buy that I wouldn't be able to pay for if I gave up my current position).

But I occasionally find myself asking, "Is this worth it?" I have to do what you've done with your post - say it "out loud" so that I can be reminded that pain is part of my life, but it's not my life. In other words, if I allow myself to make decisions based solely on the pain, then the pain becomes the center around which the rest of my life revolves. To keep it in proper perspective, I have to (for me) keep looking at those things I do in my life despite the pain and ask the question: am I willing to give so much power to the pain that I'm ready to walk away from those things? Be it laughter, intimacy, serenity, a sense of fulfillment, a sense of usefulness to others, learning, questioning, comforting.... any of the blessings that I've received as a result of living a sober life without alcohol/drugs/pain at the center of it - those are gifts and blessings I'm not willing to give over to the bottle (whatever form it takes) or to pain. If I do - where is the quality of my life?

I don't think that you're whining, and from the sounds of it, you're looking at it and questioning it in ways that anyone would be hard pressed to label as "denial." Assigning less importance to pain is not an easy thing to do, but it's possible, anna. All I have to do is think about my grandmother and the things she was capable of doing, all with RA and some serious back and leg problems and the occasional "sick headache" (migraines). I don't remember it keeping her from enjoying the company of others, lending an ear, keeping up with local and national news, growing and preserving her own vegetables, baking her own bread...etc. Thoughts of her have many times kept me from giving the pain increased power in my life.

I'll light a candle for you, anna.

Peace & Love,
Sugah