brightrosefox | it resonated

botia, replying to

shadesong, in relation to the chronic fatigue of fibromyalgia and other medical conditions involving fatigue and pain:

"I am sick of "But you had the energy to _______". I never KNOW what energy I'm going to have for things, and if I am blessed with enough to do something enjoyable, all the better. Why should I waste all of my limited resources on miserable tasks?"

***
Granted, I don't have it so bad as that, but I have gotten the "Oh, but you look fine and you were able to do that and not be in pain or fatigued, so why can't you do this?" speech. And my thought response is something like the quote above.

I am of two minds. One mind knows that I certainly can and should push past it and do everything I can. The other mind feels that it would only make the problem worse and I should step back and ask for help when I know it gets bad. I cannot pick one side over the other because it all depends on the situation. It is a strange Catch-22. Wanting the handicap to be acknowledged and accepted, but not wanting to be treated like an invalid. It is hard to know where the real distinctions lie.

So:
Being able to do something despite being in pain vs needing help due to being in pain vs being in pain and waiting a while before doing something vs doing something despite pain and needing recovery afterwards.

Case in point: If I am alone and something must get done (or no one will help), I will certainly do it alone, and face the pain, but may need a few hours of rest and recovery, maybe some yoga and meditation. Also, if I realize that doing a task will just make things hurt more, I will wait a while for pain to lessen before doing said task, and thereby needing less recovery time.

It must be wonderful to live without this.