Hi 😀
My name is Lara. And I'm a normal person – whatever that means! I eat healthy for the most part (ie: I don't eat out much at all and I pretty much never eat junk food), I used to work out a few days a week (more on this in another post), in fact, I became a Les Mills RPM instructor a couple of years ago, and I run a boutique customer experience and change leadership consultancy.
I live alone. No partner, no kids, no pets, no plants. And there's a good reason for that! But we're not quite there yet.
And I have fibromyalgia.
Fibromyalgia, despite my friends' and family's best efforts, is a very lonely something to live with. I call it a something because nothing else seems to fit. I mean, I don't feel it's a disease or an illness and calling it a challenge just sounds odd. It's something I have. It doesn't define me and it doesn't limit me … much … anymore.
Which is why I decided to set up this blog and the accompanying vlog.
Before I discovered what works for me and before I found a support group, I was lonely with my fibro. And like one lady in my support group who has CFS/ME said, CFS is something you don't get until you get it. Same with fibro. So here I am, getting it and using what I've gotten to keep you company so you're not alone.
I'm going to use this space to share my experiences with you and invite you to get in touch with me with your questions and even ask me to speak with your group – whether it comprises people with fibro or CFS/ME or medical professionals (physical or mental health) who want to learn more about the various interventions currently available and what they can do to better understand what you're going through and help you along the way.
My goal, the only thing I want to be able to do, is to give people with fibro or CFS/ME a bit of motivation to help them find the strength and positivity to live life again even with the considerations and sacrifices our something brings with it.
Before we go any further, I do have to make it very clear that in no way am I representing myself as a medical professional when it comes to any of the interventions or any information I'm sharing with you; I'm simply someone who has done years of research and worked directly with a handful of medical professionals to find ways that make sure that my something neither defines nor limits me … much … anymore (I said this before, I know; it bears repeating so that no one gets the idea that I'm cured and I no longer appreciate what it means to live with this something).
Nothing I share with you is meant to take the place of you getting appropriate medical advice from a trained professional.
What I share with you is going to be a combination of blog posts and videos for a couple of reasons: first, I would like for us to share a bond which I believe can only happen when you have the opportunity to not only see me, but also witness my feelings of frustration and acceptance and joy and anger as I live with my something and, second, there are some things that are easier read than listened to and vice versa.
Oh! I also have tinnitus and am lactose intolerant and insulin resistant. And these all came up at the same time (fibro included) when I was 35. Are they related? I don't know. No one else seems to know either although there's a lot of experience (a couple of centuries, at least, combined!) that is leaning towards 'yes'. What is known is that they can be/are accepted to most likely be symptoms of a bigger something – a greater malaise, if you want to be poetic about it – so sometimes, I'll talk only about the fibro and other times, the other somethings will come into the discussion.
This is a journey … and it's not a linear one, at that … and I'm happy to have you with me 💖
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