Unraveling the Years: A Cure for Fibromyalgia?

Some background:1

I grew up as the only child of an abusive, alcoholic father and a depressed and self absorbed mother. Like most children, I blamed myself and had tremendous guilt for the horrible things I "made" my parents do. The anxiety I endured was excruciating. As a child, it mainly manifested itself as horrible stomach aches. I can't begin to explain how painful these stomach aches were. As I grew older, maybe around the age of 9 or 10, I began to learn how to stop one if one started. It was mental. I had to find a corner somewhere, curl up in a ball, and go into an almost meditative state until it went away, which it would do in about 20 - 30 minutes. I got very good at this, as the alternative was to suffer with it for hours. I have suffered from anxiety ever since.2


February 20083

I awoke from a sound sleep with the memory in my head of a conversation that I had with my father. I had forgotten completely about it and somehow remembered it in my sleep. 4

In my early 20's, I convinced myself that I had forgiven my Dad because he was an alcoholic. He had been to treatment and had gotten sober years before this. In hindsight, I realize that once my Dad got sober, I spent my time with him desperately seeking his approval. I mean, if he did the things he did to me because he was drunk, now all should be better, right? Because it wasn't me, it was the alcohol.5

After my dad received treatment and was faithfully attending AA meetings, the physical abuse stopped but the mental and emotional abuse didn't. I refused to see this for what it was at the time. I didn't want it to be about me; I wanted it to be all about the alcohol.6

The conversation that I remembered was my dad telling me that he had told my mother that he didn't want to have kids. He said the very next month she was pregnant with me. His tone of voice and facial expressions let me know that he was still very resentful about this. He said, "Your mother never cared about anyone but herself. I think she got pregnant just to spite me." 7

This memory jolted my world. It was my worst fear since childhood, confirmed. He did all of the things that he did to me because he was so angry and resentful that I was born. Everything started to make sense as I began thinking about specific incidents. I cannot explain my state of being at this time. I simply don't know how. Horror, shock, anger, sadness.......8

March, 1993
Back pain. It was so horrible that there were days when I couldn't even walk. Over the next 9 years I would go to doctor after doctor. They would take xrays, do exams, and tests, and each one would tell me that there was nothing wrong with my back. "It's probably sciatica," they'd say, "and there's nothing we can really do for that." 9

I suffered on with the pain until 2002. I caught part of a segment on a tv show called 60 Minutes about a doctor who claimed he could cure people of this kind of pain (when there's nothing medically wrong) just by having them attend one of his seminars. It was about how the pain we felt was being caused by our own brains. It served as a distraction to keep us from remembering something our brain thought we might not be able to handle. He said when you experience this pain to just tell yourself that you can cause this pain, but you are going on with your day anyway - and then go on with your day. I tried this technique, and within two weeks my back pain was gone forever.10

Feb/March 2008
Within days of experiencing this devastating memory, I became sick with bronchitis. I took a round of antibiotics and felt better soon after. About two weeks later, I was sitting on my basement floor, playing with my kids. I noticed that my neck was starting to get very tender, and a few hours later, the glands in my neck were incredibly swollen and painful. The next day, as I was getting out of the shower, I noticed a rash on my stomach, chest, and neck. It resembled a strep rash, so I made another appointment with my doctor.11

My doctor ran a series of tests to rule out cancer, mono, etc. Everything came back clean (thank God). In the time between my original appointment and getting all of the lab results back I began to feel bruised and sore in strange places, like the outer most part of the tops of my shoulders, the palms of my hands,& the soles of my feet.
I described this to my doctor when I went for my follow up appointment to get my lab results. My doctor saw me a few more times and then diagnosed me with Fibromyalgia. 12

May, 2009
Over that past year, I had felt very run down and achey most of the time. Finally, my doctor referred me to a rheumatologist to rule out lupus or some other autoimmune disease. Once again, the tests all came back clean, and she also told me that she really thought it was fibro. But then she said something that really made me think. She told me that fibro was completely benign and would never cause my body any physical harm. If this is the case, I thought, it has to psychologically caused. It has to be mind over matter.13

I thought about this quite a bit, and I remembered the experience that I had with my back pain. I realized that while I was successful at alleviating the pain, I may have missed a crucial step. Was my brain making me sick to distract me from the same painful memory that my back pain stemmed from? I was able to beat the back pain, but I never explored what it was that my subconscious was so desperately trying to deflect. I wondered if my fibro could be a continuation of this attempt at distraction.14

June 2009
I told myself, one night, that it was time for a long, hard look at something that I know even on a conscious level I have never let myself think about. I'm not going to go into the details, but I was able to admit that the little that I could remember was not "normal" in any way. It was time to face the truth. Because of partial memories that I've always had, a comment that a therapist once made to me, my own past self destructive behavior and attitudes, my horrendous anxiety, and my theory that my own brain is purposely making me sick to avoid a painful memory, I believe that I was, in some way, sexually abused by my father; the abuse wasn't just physical. 15

And I cried for the first time since that morning I awoke with that shocking memory of the conversation with my dad. Only, this time, I wasn't panic ridden. I wasn't wracked with anxiety. I didn't feel traumatized. I felt relieved - peaceful even. I immediately noticed that the hatred that I felt for my dad was gone. In hindsight, I felt terrificly guilty for hating him and still believed it was my fault. But suddenly the hate was gone and with it, the guilt. It was not replaced with any other emotion, it was just simply no longer there. I think I finally was able to let him go and everything that came with him. I think on all levels I finally knew that it wasn't me, that he was simply a monster, probably a bit sociopathic. I felt an odd self pride that I had gotten through it - maybe not gracefully, but I did the best I could. I feltl authentically good about that.16

I'm far from through with the process, and, honestly, I'm not exactly sure what my next step is going to be, but I feel very strongly that I may have found my own cure for fibromyalgia. My hope is that I will no longer have the subconscious need to distract my thoughts with physical pain and malaise. I still have no specific memory of sexual abuse by my father, but I have been able to admit to myself that it happened. I think that's a good first step. It will be a process, but I can see the light at the end of a dark, dreary, and nasty tunnel. I can see serenity. I can see self acceptance. I will no longer see myself as a spirit broken. I will see myself as my own super hero, my own rescuer. That already feels really good.