As previously mentioned, I decided to start this blog so I had a place to state all these thoughts that have been trapped in my head with no place to go. I have been in the midst of a familiar situation, it just hasn’t been around since I first started having to explain to my friends what was going on with my body, which was about 10 years ago.
**************************************************************
A decade ago, I didn’t really know how to explain what was wrong with me very well. Luckily I was explaining it to my closest friends and family who had known me most of my life, so I had the best, most willing and wanting to understand, to explain it to. So as each pain and fatigue symptom persisted, I knew my loved ones were listening.
**************************************************************
But in early May of 2009, I had to leave most of these people and move to a new place, where no one but my parents knew me, back into a world where very few people had even heard the word, "Fibromyalgia" not to mention that, after 10 years, I had realized that it served me best, especially at the beginning of any kind of relationship, not to mention my illness. Worst of all, now I was dealing with severe depression, because I missed my friends terribly, and still do, and was newly diagnosed with Narcolepsy, a scary and mysterious new disease I still am having a hard time understanding.
***************************************************************
Once I obtained employment in Tennessee, I thought I needed to be extra careful to keep my chronic pain hidden and I thought I was doing a really good job, but I soon came to find out that almost every employee in the small office I worked in was talking and wondering about what could be wrong with me. One of them being someone who is still one of my friends to this day. The only friend I have made, in a year. I am very thankful for her, more than I can explain. This person is who I really want to talk about in this posting.
****************************************************************
The other day, I had a very hard conversation with this person that I know is a friend, but I have found it very hard to explain Fibromyalgia (FMS) to her. I know when I re-located, I moved into what people call, "the Bible Belt." Where I came from, I came to consider it ignorant not to remain open to all religions, races and sexual orientations. I have had a hard time trying to figure out how to deal with this "Bible Belt" concept. I was personally raised Catholic, in every sense of the word. My friend and I actually became close because I asked her if I could come to her Bible study on Wednesdays. It seemed very important to her. All I knew was that I had just bought a Catholic Study Bible before I left Michigan to try to understand the religion that was so important to my parents, but it was so overwhelming, and I didn’t know where to start. My friend seemed so happy because of her church, I figured I could approach Bible Study as a sort of "Book Club" so that I could learn about the Bible and maybe have some of that happiness rub off on me too. I brought my Bible to work and at lunch we compared it to her Bible and realized that they were saying the same thing, just with different words. I felt the word differences were poetic from both Bibles, which made the idea of studying them even more intriguing. Slowly but surely, I realized that God put a light in my friend that I was not so familiar with and my friend told me that, even though I may not have known just how strongly, I was a woman of Jesus and I’m filled with God’s light too. Coming from my friend, that is by far the highest compliment I could receive.
****************************************************************
Quickly people at work started realizing that I was becoming friends with this woman, almost 20 years older than me. They couldn’t believe why a middle-upper class (that’s my parents b/c it’s definitely not me) white woman, would be the only white person going to an all black church called the New Zion Missionary Baptist Church with my Catholic Study Bible. Some of the white Baptists at work even told me that I needed to learn the ways of the "South" and learn that the churches are segregated. I’ve never felt more like I stepped back into the 1950's in my life. I cried hard the night I was told that. I wondered if it was true and I missed Michigan so badly that day and night I felt it in my teeth, because I never even heard the word segregated except in my history books. It was wonderfully sweet justice in my mind when I went to my friend’s church and everyone treated me like a brand new friend for the first day I was there, everyone more eager than the next to get their chance to introduce themselves to me. As they realized I was going to keep coming back, each time they welcomed me with open arms, literally, hugs all around. It’s been about six months now and they call me Sister "Sista" Amy, because we are all brothers and sisters of God’s family. I’ve never felt more comfortable except in my own family. Believe me, I was quick to tell the people who told me the churches are segregated. The person’s response, "don’t expect it to be the same way if you took Paula to your church." Actually, it would be no problem if I took Paula to my Catholic Church, would it be a problem for a white person to take a black person to their Babptist church in the South? That’s what I’d really like to know???
****************************************************************
Anyway, I really love my new friend, but there was one problem, I knew she didn’t believe in my medical problems, too many times she asked if I could be bringing these problems on myself for attention or by thinking them into being. It hurt tremendously, but I didn’t know her well enough to unleash the wrath of what most people would get. It took a long time for me to figure out what to say... but after I went through a particularly difficult string of abusive words from a family member about how the tremendous pain and exhaustion I had just gone through in the past week were all my fault, I couldn’t handle this friend’s words of the same. I finally just said, it is words like those that drive me over the edge. This is an actual disease. It has nothing to do with attention and I used the example about how I’m always crying about how my father berates me. Prior to being sick, my father and I had a good relationship. Why would I want his attention to go from good to constant berating and such emotionally abusive words as to cause me suicidal ideation? There was a time when this friend saw me through one of these suicidal moments, she knows how far I can sink if I can’t find ways to cope. Luckily I learned how to ask for help. But, I lost most of my "friends," I get very little attention from them now. I’d really like to know what attention these sick people are getting that everyone is talking about when I’m told my disease is just something I’m doing for attention, because I’m sure not getting it. I’ve lost everything, I live in my parents basement, 600 miles away from my friends, life and time passing me by, I’m mostly incapable of dating or a social life, but this is the type of attention I’ve been yearning for my whole life, just the ability to bitch about it! Just kidding, although it did feel good to get that out, just like it did to say it to my friend after months of her asking if attention seeking was the purpose of my complaints. My friend finally got it.
****************************************************************
That day I was meeting with one of my doctors. I found a pamphlet on Fibromyalgia, how loved ones can support those with FMS. I met up with my friend at Book Club, I mean Bible Study, after the appointment. I gave her the pamphlet and she read it. The first thing she said to me is, "it’s an actual, real disease." I simply said, "yes it is."
****************************************************************
Here’s to you and me, pain free!
MZ
No comments:
Post a Comment