I really can't think of a witty title for this...

So, TLC has decided to just on the success that A&E is having with their show on hoarders. They aired a show last night on extreme hoarders.*
The first person on the show is an ex-military guy, which was kind of weird and just goes to show you that anyone can have this disorder. The second person was a woman who has Fibromyalgia.
My heart sank a bit when she said that, because I'm reasonably sure I can see where this is going to head in the Fibro communities.
OCD's are a touchy subject in the Fibro community. A large amount of the people with Fibro have an anxiety disorder of some kind. Sometimes they are generalized anxiety disorders, sometimes they even manifest as eating disorders, but most of the time they are OCD disorders. Mild ones, but still there.
People with Fibro often have so many other problems that the anxiety disorders go untreated. Sometimes you get a doctor that will give you a drug that will combat it, but not always. Assuming you found a doctor that believes you in the first place. We try hard to appear normal, and act normal, because for years we have been known as crazy women (and men). Fibro isn't real, you're faking, it's not that bad, and so on.
For years we have been fighting that label of "crazy women". This program really didn't help. Look at the crazy hoarder woman, she has Fibro. I wonder if my co-worker/friend/sibling/etc. is crazy too. So thanks TLC, for both giving us more exposure and putting the cause back. I'm not sure if I'm happy about it or sad, that now if I tell someone I have Fibro they will think of a crazy hoarder woman down south who hid stuff she picked up in the trash in her bushes so her husband didn't know she had it.


*Hoarders are people with a complex OCD that manifests itself in them buying and then keeping objects that they do not need but retain a connection to. Because of the connection they often times can not let go of their collections. Extreme hoarders are just that, they have so many things in their houses and on their property that it is no longer safe. Just an FYI.

Feeling good (not god)

I have Fibromyalgia, and for the last few months I have been in a flare, which is when your body decides that every touch will be felt as pain. It is, well, imagine that wearing clothes hurt. That being touched by your child hurt. That sitting or laying down hurt. Any touches, all touch, hurt.
Then today it stopped. No more pain, just general achiness.
You have no idea how wonderful that is.

The dreams of our fathers

I know, I promised to update about the court case and I didn't. Well, all is well. The kid is offically mine (I have primary physical custody) and he has reasonable visitation. I'm a smidge irritated by the fact that it cost all that money to get him to agree to what I told him in Sept/Oct of last year. I am not sure what the point of all that was.
So let's see, I've talked politics and religion and Lost here, let's talk about something else close to my heart, Fibromyalgia. Though God knows I wish it wasn't close to my heart. I've had the bitch that is Fibro for almost 4 years now, and been diagnosed for about 2.
Fibro is a chronic pain disorder, and though current thinking places it as a immuno-neuolgic disorder no one really knows what causes it. It results in nerve pain, all over. Seriously, all freaking over. Each person reacts differently to it. Some people are rarely bothered, some people function with meds and have bad bad days but in general are OK (me), and some people are bed-ridden. It really runs the gamut.
Like most of these stupid chronic pain disorders you don't see anything wrong with me. I'm in pain, you don't see it. It's hard to approach a disease that way (my mother one time told me how terrible it would be if I were "really" sick. Ummm, gee thanks mom! Yep, I'm making it up!)
Anyway... recently Fibro has risen into the public's view, and now we have drugs for it and commercials advertising those drugs. Commercials that feature older women bitching about how they hurt. Umm, I'm 31. Most people with Fibro are young, it strikes between 18-35 regularly, though of course there are the oddballs outside of that age group. It almost never strikes after menopause. Most people with Fibro are women. One of the few common factors with Fibro is that it seems to occur after a trauma, I found myself with it after being preggers. If you have it, chances are a close relative has it too. You also probably have some kind of anxiety disorder.
There are a lot of things that aren't understood about Fibro, but slowly people are learning more. We now know that people with it seem to carry a high level of bacteria in their body, well past normal. We know that it is closely related to chronic fatigue syndrome, so close that people think they are the same disorder just manifesting different symptoms. But there is no standard treatement, and that makes it a hard disease.
So if you know someone who has it? Hey, be nice to them when they seem to move slowly, they go home early, or they seem a bit out of it. OK?