Being Positive With Fibromyalgia…Ya, Right!

“Try to be positive, try to be positive”…what kind of advice is that to give to someone suffering from fibromyalgia!?!

I mean, be positive??…with fibromyalgia???

Well, I’m going to venture to say it’s both RIDICULOUS advice and GREAT advice, all at once, at least that’s what I’ve come to think after experiencing going on fifteen years of trial and error living with fibromyalgia.

So let me explain.

On the ridiculous side of things…I’m guessing someone is not going to just “get positive” because someone else tells them to. I think being positive has to come from within. That’s not to say, someone can’t choose to be positive…I whole heartedly believe they can…I’m just not sure they are going to choose to be positive simply because someone else says to. And then when you factor fibromyalgia into the equation, well…as those of us with fibromyalgia know very well…choosing to be positive becomes a lot tougher choice to make…a whole lot tougher! In fact, having fibromyalgia and having SOMEONE ELSE tell ME to be positive would pretty much elicit the exact opposite…I’m pretty sure I’d be far from positive in my response to them!

So…to be clear…I’m NOT telling ANYONE to be positive…each of us with fibromyalgia has to make our own choice to be whatever feels right to us…to be whatever it is that helps us survive.

Because I know from firsthand experience that it’s tough to feel positive if you have fibromyalgia…very tough.

How can you feel positive when you’re in constant pain? Positive when you’re completely and immovably exhausted? Positive when you can’t sleep properly (or at all) night after night? Positive when you have all sorts of downright scary and disturbing symptoms randomly taking over your body? Positive when you have the same amount of work to get done and only half the amount of time (on a good day) that you feel okay enough to do it? Positive when you’re forever overloaded and permanently behind? Positive when you can’t manage it all and still be able to attend all the social things that you used to? And then positive when you manage to attend some and people still dump on you because it’s still not enough?

Yes, I definitely couldn’t blame anyone with fibromyalgia for not being positive. If we just focus on the fibromyalgia aspect of our lives…which is a huge aspect because for the most part it takes over everything else…really, it’s pretty much all negative.

So, many years ago, when I first had fibromyalgia and I decided to “minimize it”, I think it led to me stumbling onto something that’s ended up being really key for me in fighting fibromyalgia. “Minimize it” was the catch phrase I gave the mind-set that I adopted to fight fibromyalgia by largely not focusing on it. For me, thinking of “minimizing it” became a way to help keep fibromyalgia in a limited role in my life, it helped to reduce its power over me and maintain my sense of well-being. The idea of “minimizing it” is to limit fibromyalgia to just being as small a part of your life as it can…and limit it to being ONLY one part of your life (not overruling everything).

So I think, when “minimizing it” helped me to take the focus off of my fibromyalgia…it therefore helped me to not be so loaded down with the negativeness of living with fibromyalgia. And as the years went on, and I struggled to keep “minimizing it”, I gradually noticed that when I wasn’t doing so well with “minimizing it” and therefore negativeness crept in, my symptoms were worse…and conversely, when I was managing to “minimize it” and therefore wasn’t so negative, my symptoms were a lot better.

At some point, the correlation between being positive and fewer symptoms just became a given for me and I was always striving for ways to keep positive.

So…um…having said all that about it being ridiculous to advise someone with fibromyalgia to be positive…well…on the “great advice” side of it…I also know that over the years of having fibromyalgia, I’ve come to realize being positive IS such a key part of how I manage my symptoms…an extremely key part. Don’t get me wrong…I’m not (magically) walking around positive all the time…can anyone even do that? But I sure wish I was…really…I like being positive…life is so much easier (and nicer) when I can manage it…so I do work hard at it.

And with fibromyalgia, because I’ve seen it makes such a huge difference, I’ve learned to work extra hard at it to get the payoff. Because now that I think about it, I get the GREAT FEELING of being positive and also the bonus of an IMPROVEMENT IN MY FIBROMYALGIA SYMPTOMS.

And I’ve developed so many ways to try to keep positive. Exercising is a big one, I guess because of the increase in endorphins and serotonin that we get from it, plus I believe it helps me to get better sleep, which can only help my mind-set to be more positive. But I’ve also found all sorts of little tricks in the ways I think of things and approach life that I’ll talk about in future posts. And I’m always looking for new inspiration everywhere, in the people I talk to, in the articles I read…even keeping myself open to inspiration, in fact, feels positive.

And I’ve learned that sometimes, just making the choice is all that’s really necessary for me to be positive.

‎Why does thinking positively seem to affect my fibromyalgia symptoms for the better? I’m not an expert, but I totally suspect it has something to do with the effects it has on our brains. If you just search online “positive thinking and brain chemistry”, you can see for yourself and see what you think. And it seems to me that being positive automatically by nature counteracts stress…I think it’s been widely known for years that stress aggravates (and even causes) health conditions…I can definitely tell that stress aggravates my fibromyalgia.

As a matter of fact, I’ve been shocked at how well I’ve done with my fibromyalgia symptoms during some incredibly stressful times even though I wasn’t getting much sleep nor working out as much…which are crucial things that I usually largely rely on to combat fibromyalgia …but because I was just grinding through solely by maintaining a positive attitude. Even with how incredibly important and even crucial that I think exercise and good sleep  are for managing my fibromyalgia symptoms long term, I was able to sail through a time of tremendous stress for quite awhile on sheer forced positive attitude when I needed to.

So…no…I’m definitely not telling anyone else to be positive…that’s each person’s right to be however they want to be. We all have to live‎ with our own set of characteristics and our individual circumstances and do our best to work with what we have at the time.

And for those of us with fibromyalgia, I believe, from my experience, that we have every right to be negative. And at times…that’s exactly how I end up or even what I choose to be.

But…what I know is real…is that overall, throughout all these years, being positive has proved to be way more helpful to me in fighting fibromyalgia than being negative (or even neutral) has, maybe even CRUCIAL to fighting it. In fact, it could be one of the reasons I keep gradually improving. At the very, very least, being positive has propelled me through some really difficult and stressful times when I wasn’t able to do all the other things that I have come to know are helpful to combat fibromyalgia.

So I will absolutely continue my quest to stay positive…because I’ve found that life is just a lot easier when I am able to…a lot easier!