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Trying to Understand how to Help a Friend with Fibromyalgia

© Cynthia Webber (Jausten)

There are some people who try to really understand what each of us goes through on a daily basis of dealing with our fibromyalgia. Recently I received an e-mail from a friend who wrote, "It is so difficult for others who are not in chronic pain, to understand what the struggle of your daily life is like. I can't really understand the pain of fibromyalgia because I am not being assaulted with it day and night as you are. I can only try to imagine what it must be like to be frequently unable to sleep, unable to sit or stand comfortably, unable to go to a movie, attend a workshop, unable even to read a book, because it hurts too much."

This friend is trying to understand what a close friend of hers is going through each day. She wants to help, but feels that she sometimes says the wrong thing to her friend. She also wrote, "We outsiders try to understand, try to empathize, but ultimately we always fall short because we are not there, being battered by the pain that will not end, that never gives you peace, a storm from which it seems that you can never find any shelter. All the love we try to send to you, all the gentle hugs we can send over the 'net, all the dreams and hopes and caring that we want to extend to you, all come crashing against this wall of pain, and fall like pitiful little jokes onto the ground. We want to take your pain away. We can't. And sometimes we, the outsiders, feel like such despicable worms because we aren't there suffering your pain instead of you - even though it is impossible. So we feel guilty. Then we start to blame you for making us feel guilty. Then it becomes easier to stop caring, because it hurts to watch someone you care about in pain. Barriers go up, more walls, more defenses. The person who most needs unconditional love and acceptance stops getting it, because the people around her are protecting themselves from the weight of the guilt of her pain, and their shame at being pain-free while she suffers."

This wonderful woman expressed what I'm sure many of our friends and family wish they could express. She wants to learn how she can help her friend. She wants to know how people without fibromyalgia can break out of the cycle of guilt, blame, and shame. She also wants to know how to keep loving people who are living with chronic pain, even when she feels frustrated and helpless in being unable to relieve their pain.