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A Son's Perspective on Fibromyalgia

© Cynthia Webber (Jausten)

This week's article was written by my 20 year old son. I had asked him to write an article from his perspective of living with a mother who has fibromyalgia. He is in his second year at the University of British Columbia, majoring in creative writing.

Living with a parent who has fibromyalgia can be very difficult. It is hard because of the obvious reason that they can no longer do the things that they used to be able to do like working, cooking, cleaning, and various other activities because of pain and lack of stamina. It is also hard to understand the illness when you as a bystander cannot see or feel the effects.

So often the parent turns to the internet because it is an activity that involves little physical activity, and therefore little pain. Also, there are others out there with the same condition that the parent can talk to and feel that they are understood. However, this can cause more problems in the family relationship, as it solves some others for the parent with fibromyalgia.

Family members who already have difficulty understanding and accepting this illness will come to blame the internet and the computer as the source of the problem. Sitting hunched over the computer for hours and hours for days on end cannot be healthy. Therefore, family members will come to blame the parent's pain on this activity.

This can cause a lack of communication since the other family members aren't willing to acknowledge other sources of problems for the parent with fibromyalgia, and that parent is often too engrossed in their web pages or a chat situation.

So to prevent all this misunderstanding and lack of communication, perhaps a variety of activities for the parent that doesn't involve the computer could be utilized. Reading books and watching movies requires as much energy as the computer, if not less.

While it may seem to someone with this illness as unfair for them to be making all this effort, when the others in the family should be more supportive, it is really the only way to reach a level of understanding of what fibromyalgia is and how as a family, we can start to deal with it.

M. Webber

After typing and reading this article that my son wrote, I stopped to think about what he was saying. He has suggested that I spend less time on the computer and go back to reading and watching movies. These activities are just as isolating from the family as working on my web site, chatting, or creating graphics. I do occasionally watch television or a video with my family, but since our computer is in the family room, I had the television moved to the recreation room in the basement so that I could have some much needed solitude.

The copyright of the article A Son's Perspective on Fibromyalgia in Fibromyalgia is owned by Cynthia Webber (Jausten). Permission to republish A Son's Perspective on Fibromyalgia in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.