Fibromyalgia Awareness Month

Fibromyalgia is a hard condition to explain.

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It’s even tough for me to wrap my head around, and I’ve been living with it for years.

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Doctors often label it as a neurological disorder—essentially, a full-body condition where your brain misinterprets pain signals. But, in reality, Fibromyalgia is a diagnosis of exclusion.

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It’s what you get when doctors have ruled out everything else, and they still can’t pinpoint the cause. So, they give you the Fibromyalgia label—whatever that means.

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For me, Fibromyalgia means that pain is a constant companion.

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It’s never the same spot twice. One day it’s my leg, the next it’s my arm, then my wrist.

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The pain feels like someone’s squeezing my limb with all their strength—or sometimes, like there’s a knife lodged in it.

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I deal with this pain almost daily, usually starting around 10 pm. Though recently, I’ve started feeling it in the mornings, too.

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I must have been experiencing some version of it since childhood. I used to think that feeling pain when you’re tired was just a normal part of life.

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It wasn’t until I was 32 that I learned it’s not.

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Fibromyalgia is what I imagine it must feel like to be in your 80s when your body seems to turn against you.

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I’ve tried all sorts of treatments—cannabis, experimental medications, hot and cold therapy, you name it.

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I think I've developed a pretty high pain tolerance by now, and it’s become background noise.

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To everyone living with Fibromyalgia: your strength is real, even when the world can’t see it. We may not have all the answers, but we keep going—and that’s something to be proud of.