When confronted with the diagnosis of a chronic health condition like fibromyalgia, we can often grieve for the stronger, healthier person we were before it and it's like any other form of grief.
We are angry, we bargain, we accept it, we move on. The hardest part in moving on is linked with acceptance: we have to find our new normal.
I find there's a period of anger and denial, then acceptance. And it varies with each of us.
Acceptance is the pathway to moving forward. So it is critical that we come to acceptance by focussing on what we have left, rather than what chronic illness has taken away from us.
As in all grieving, no one can say how long it will take us to come to acceptance, but it must come so that we can find our new normal and live our new life in that new normal.
What chronic illness takes from us is more than the physical. But even so, despite feeling down emotionally, we should and must focus on what it hasn't taken.
I have days where I still mourn the loss of basic abilities like home cleaning, showering and walking far. Today is one of pain with fibromyalgia to the point that I can't straighten my fingers and even my eyes ache..
My to do list today is not big, but it. is. what. it. is.
Clean the kitchenCook dinnerShower sometime before bed
