Suffering from pain 24/7 can deprive you of a sense of purpose. Suddenly, you find yourself dependent on others; accomplishing the most basic tasks is a huge struggle; you feel useless and a hindrance to everyone around you. “Why am I so useless?”, “Why me?”, “This is no way to live” will be some thoughts that will frequently go through your mind.
How can you find a sense of purpose if your body and mind take a beating from chronic pain? I began to struggle with this thought not long after the pain started. Every time, I felt that I couldn’t entirely trust my brain because it was always too tired, too sleep-deprived, and too confused. Yet, every time, the solution I could think of to find purpose in life again was to fight against the discrimination people with fibromyalgia go through.
This blog was the first step towards that goal, but I knew that was far from enough. Sharing my story in a newspaper was the next step. João from Shifter kindly accepted my submission for an article, and it was published. It took me a while to do it because that meant exposing myself more than I already had, making me uncomfortable. What can I say?! I love being a stranger.
Of course, the article I mentioned above is just the beginning. I intend to have the media publish stories about this syndrome (something is being worked on, but I don’t know if it will come to fruition), the discrimination we go through, and the suffering we endure every second of every day. I plan to have it mentioned on TV shows and, eventually, talk with Portugal’s President about this and get his support in passing laws protecting us. Suppose I’m successful on a national level. In that case, I will consider doing it at a European Union level if I can gather support for it.
This is a daunting task. I don’t know if I’ll succeed; I don’t know if I’ll have the energy to go through it. But trying it is my newfound life purpose.
Image from Unsplash
