Re: No Fibro Success = no fibro support

. . . . . . . . .Have the majority of people overcome fibromyalgia?...............

I think a lot of relatives will get angry if told this however true it is. Most people think that if they can't see the pain it doesn't exist. And most people function at a low level of ego development (immature).

For most people the person lying in bed with a high fever, maybe vomiting, will generate feelings of sympathy, questions as to what happened, how is he/she doing asked in subdued tones.

But someone who clearly knows they are feeling awful and/or wants to kill themselves, and is sitting talking with you, will usually be viewed with skepticism because another person/relative doesn't "SEE" anything wrong. They have to see something wrong to feel empathy. Because, after all, you can't be feeling bad, you LOOK ALRIGHT! The same thinking is applied to pain, "you can't be in pain because I don't see any pain (like a broken arm)." That you are in some constant pain which you continuously bear is attacked even more! This has to be attacked because, after all, what kind of person(s) would they be to see you in pain and just walk by and not do anything to help you out of it. Not possible. No, they're your friend and they wouldn't ignore pain. They're smarter than that. This is a knee jerk reaction by unthinking :( people/relatives/support group/ and there are plenty of such people around everyone. The true test for pain is to look in your face and if they don't see the emotion there (like pain) then you don't have it. They don't question whether it is always possible to discern pain in someone's face or manner. Just look at the number of times people will say on TV they could tell someone (an adult) was guilty by looking at his/her face (..after a court trial).

Most of these people are in a lot of pain themselves, however this fact is not easily seen because they (for reasons of their own) don't want it to be seen. If they started to voice concern over pain, as you have, to their friends, they would receive the same verbal barrage you did! Perhaps they already complained to their friends and expected help but got hell. They did not get any relief for their trouble, so now they don't want you to complain. If they expected help and didn't get it, they would feel hurt, wouldn't they? And now, they don't want to be reminded of that hurt by you. Or, (another reason) the people you look to for some support may not be able to describe exactly in words the phsical pain they are trying very hard to deny or forget and now you are reminding them of what they would rather forget. This makes them angry and they atttack. Most people walk around with more burdens and take on more then they can (painlessly) handle. That leaves precious little time for considering someone else's "invisible nonsense."

Immature people usually will not give credence to something if they haven't experienced the same thing/pain themselves. So if they haven't had your particular fibro problems, you have to wait until they do before they believe you (or your complaints/solutions). You might talk yourself to death :( trying to convince them. Don't forget we all know people who are authoritarian types. They only see the world in BLACK and WHITE colors. For them it's always a case of "either" "or" and nothing inbetween. This type of thinking makes them FEEL safe and compells them to agree with the majority opinion. They could be helped to react less (narcissistically), help themselves more, as well as better evaluate the truth of another's point of view, by taking a few psychology classes. But then, as luck would have it, they have a hurdle to get around or overcome. Most people read psychology for its amusing interest and care little about its science.



definitions for those who find them useful:
hurdle.....barrier--or to enclose with barriers
.....................--to overcome a hurdle is to master a problem

immature...undeveloped
...........untimely
Tweet