Three years ago I was diagnosed with Fibromyalgia. I’ve done my best to keep it a secret, but the disease has progressed to a point to where I can no longer hide the changes to my health and behavior behind a facade of normalcy. It's time to come clean.
Fibromyalgia is an autoimmune disease with no cure and few effective treatments. Although it manifests itself differently in everyone, I’m plagued with combination of fatigue, memory loss, and chronic pain across all the joints and muscles in my body. On a good day, it is like having a severe case of the flue; on a bad day, I can't move at all. My brain’s neuroreceptors interpret all stimuli as pain; touch, smells, sound, even thinking to myself feels like being stabbed by thousands of tiny …show more content…
Everything I do - work, volunteer, or even just grabbing a beer with friends - comes at a cost, and I find myself bargaining with a body that has betrayed me, trading a few hours of functionality for a few days (or weeks) of bed rest. It’s a cost I’m willing to pay, but it has forced me to prioritize (often incorrectly) where I can feasibly invest my efforts.
It helps to understand, if you imagine your day as a pitch-black labyrinth of opportunity, and your energies as a matchbox. You need to use a variable number of matches to see through the maze, and once they run out, you must wait until you’re given a new matchbox the following day. Everyone has a finite number of matches - I just happen to have a smaller matchbox than most, my matches burn out quicker than the norm, and I almost always burn myself each time I try to to light one...
More and more, I’ve been forced to acknowledge that I have been unsuccessful in balancing my health needs with my passions, my work, my friends, and the amazing community I serve. By trying to keep my Fibromyalgia a secret, and pretending - perhaps even to myself - to still be the person I was before, I have not had any “matches” left over to take care of …show more content…
I have notified Iriyat Givat Shmuel of my planned resignation (to take effect May 1), and after wrapping up my current contracts I will be taking on substantially fewer pro bono and freelance projects moving forward. I will also slowly be phasing myself out of many of the day-to-day activities of The GSC - Givat Shmuel Community (R.A.) - I owe the community too much to step away entirely, but for the time being I have no choice but to limit my involvement to a much smaller
Fibromyalgia is an autoimmune disease with no cure and few effective treatments. Although it manifests itself differently in everyone, I’m plagued with combination of fatigue, memory loss, and chronic pain across all the joints and muscles in my body. On a good day, it is like having a severe case of the flue; on a bad day, I can't move at all. My brain’s neuroreceptors interpret all stimuli as pain; touch, smells, sound, even thinking to myself feels like being stabbed by thousands of tiny …show more content…
Everything I do - work, volunteer, or even just grabbing a beer with friends - comes at a cost, and I find myself bargaining with a body that has betrayed me, trading a few hours of functionality for a few days (or weeks) of bed rest. It’s a cost I’m willing to pay, but it has forced me to prioritize (often incorrectly) where I can feasibly invest my efforts.
It helps to understand, if you imagine your day as a pitch-black labyrinth of opportunity, and your energies as a matchbox. You need to use a variable number of matches to see through the maze, and once they run out, you must wait until you’re given a new matchbox the following day. Everyone has a finite number of matches - I just happen to have a smaller matchbox than most, my matches burn out quicker than the norm, and I almost always burn myself each time I try to to light one...
More and more, I’ve been forced to acknowledge that I have been unsuccessful in balancing my health needs with my passions, my work, my friends, and the amazing community I serve. By trying to keep my Fibromyalgia a secret, and pretending - perhaps even to myself - to still be the person I was before, I have not had any “matches” left over to take care of …show more content…
I have notified Iriyat Givat Shmuel of my planned resignation (to take effect May 1), and after wrapping up my current contracts I will be taking on substantially fewer pro bono and freelance projects moving forward. I will also slowly be phasing myself out of many of the day-to-day activities of The GSC - Givat Shmuel Community (R.A.) - I owe the community too much to step away entirely, but for the time being I have no choice but to limit my involvement to a much smaller