Ooh, ooh, I wanna lie about being in pain!

According to Jezebel, Fibromyalgia Syndrome is a big ol' fake disease. Y'know, FMS sufferers really just don't want to work, don't want to do anything productive. We want to sit on our asses all day and be lazy. So we just make up some symptoms.

I understand that it's hard to take someone seriously when they say they have an illness yet you can't see any physical manifestation of said illness. It happens a lot when someone has a temporary handicap sign to hang on their rearview mirror, yet they get out of the car and seem perfectly ambulatory. The automatic assumption is to jump to conclusions and say that they don't need that sign, they don't need that assistance. Same thing happens when I'm using my cane on bad days. It's also hard to believe that someone is ill when they're still functioning.

But that's the nature of FMS, as well as Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. We (those of us who have it/them) look perfectly healthy. On some days, we even act like we're healthy and nothing is wrong with us. But what a lot of healthy people don't see are the bad days, the days we can't get out of bed, or if we do get out of bed we're only going to the couch. They don't see the days we're stiff and sore, the days it hurts just to be touched by a loved one, the days we can barely eat, the days we really just want to curl up into a ball and die. It's intensely frustrating, and intensely disheartening to live with this.

If you're one of the "lucky" few to have CFS in co-morbidity, you're also prone to sleeping all the time (when you can fall asleep/stay asleep at all), and still feeling like you only got one hour. You may have gotten eight straight, but your body doesn't give a crap.

We're stuck between a rock and a hard place, especially in regards to being employed. I work in the food service industry, and on the days I'm barely mobile, I can't exactly call in and say I'm not coming into work. This is especially true because while I may seem like I'm fine, I'm mostly just internalizing my pain and suffering so that I don't have people asking me if I'm okay a million times an hour. But it's those days that end up hurting me the most, because I have to push myself in order to function, and by pushing myself I'm just screwing myself up further. I'm using energy that I don't even have to spare.

Add in semi-sleepless nights and difficulty falling asleep, with numerous random awakenings, and it's a huge recipe for disaster. By not getting enough sleep, my body's ability to deal with pain is decreased. Then pain makes it harder to sleep, and I get even less rest, and the cycle is just continued.

I sometimes wonder if I was covered in bruises, some visible sign of infirmity, would people believe me? Would they maybe think twice about asking me to do physically challenging things at work? I say covered in bruises because that's usually how I feel. Today, for example, it feels like someone has been punching me in my side ribs. Earlier tonight, I couldn't scratch an itch on my left bicep because the pressure on my skin was too painful.

It's so easy for healthy, cynical people to say that FMS/CFS don't exist. It doesn't affect them, so why should they care?

Unfortunately, there really isn't any way to make them care, other than magically giving them these illnesses, and that's just cruel. But I think it's just as cruel that we're treated as pariahs because we're seeking help in managing our pain and trying to live normal lives.