Love Letter To Normals Sample printable pdf download

LOVE LETTER TO NORMALS

By Claudia Marek

Here is my letter written to explain to family and friends what it's like to have fibromyalgia.

It won't work miracles: it's hard to understand our illness from the outside looking in. But it

is a start and can open the door to important dialogues. You are all welcome to use it, either

as is, or as a basis for writing your own. Remember that you have a responsibility to tell

those close to you what is wrong and communicate as clearly as you can how you feel and

what you need. The best time to do that is when you are not upset!

Fibromyalgia isn't all in my head, and it isn't contagious. It doesn't turn into anything serious

and nobody ever died from fibromyalgia (thought they might have wished they could on

really awful days!!) If you want to read articles or books about fibromyalgia I can show you

some that I think are good. If you just want to learn as we go along, that's fine too. This is

definitely going to be a process. The first step is for you to believe that there is an illness

called fibromyalgia and that I have it. This may sound simple, but when you hear about my

symptoms I don't want you to think I'm making this all up as I go along.

Fibromyalgia is a high maintenance condition with lots and lots of different kinds of

symptoms. There's no way to just take a pill to make it go away, even for a little while.

Sometimes a certain medication can make some of my symptoms more bearable. That's about

the best I can hope for. Other times I may take a lot of medication and still won't feel any

better. That's just the way it goes. I can't control how often I feel good or when I'm going to

feel terrible. Lots of people have been cutting new drugs advertisements out of magazines for

me and I appreciate the thought, but I've seen them too. Look at the list of side effects and

the few symptoms they help in return. Even in the best studies those expensive compounds

didn't help over half the people who tried them. No matter how happy the people in the

pictures look, there's still no miracle drug available.

There's no cure for fibromyalgia and it won't go away. If I am functioning normally, I am

having a good day. This doesn't mean I'm getting better -- I suffer from chronic pain and

fatigue for which there is no cure. I can have good days, several good weeks or even months.

But a good morning can suddenly turn into a terrible afternoon. I get a feeling like someone

has pulled out a plug and all my energy has just run out of my body. I might get more

irritable before these flares, and suddenly get more sensitive to noise or just collapse from

deadening fatigue. Weather changes can have a big effect on how I feel. Other times there

may be no warning, I may just suddenly feel awful. I can't warn you when this is likely to

happen because there isn't any way for me to know. Sometimes this is a real spoiler and I'm

sorry. The sadness I feel for what my illness does to those around me is more than I can

easily describe. You may remember me as a light-hearted fun loving person -- and it hurts

me that I am no longer what I was.

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Love Letter To Normals Sample