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When being strong is the only choice

How do you react when someone compliments you on being strong? Sometimes I just smile. And often, deep inside me something hurts when I hear those words. The thought that I just want to have some strength to do the things that I could do earlier and not this mental strength crucial to 'fight' my illness. Because, frankly, I don't exactly fight my chronic illness. I coexist with it. It dominates me more often than not. I am forced to be strong to exist with it else it would shatter me completely.


I would rather have the strength to brush my teeth with ease, to knead some dough without worrying about the increased pain in my hands and shoulders thereafter, to hold my baby easily instead of avoiding circumstances when she could insist on doing so, to clean the house regularly the way I did before... to be the old healthy me. 

Sometimes, being strong is the only choice you have. Sometimes, you just want to be an ordinary person doing the ordinary things in an ordinary way.