"Devils come out!!!"

We have the sweetest family friend.  She's extremely thoughtful, one of the nicest people I've ever met, and wants to help everyone.  I've also never met someone so into natural and spiritual healing.  I got bit by a Brown Recluse spider back in the spring and she put a black salve on the spider bite.  It was totally and completely healed in a week.  My co-worker got bit by one, too.  (It was a joke in the office that the chiropractor was next.)  She almost lost her arm because of it.  She was in the hospital for a month, getting her arm drained daily.  I cannot tell you how lucky I was, how grateful I was we had this friend who had the black salve.  My scar from the bite is almost completely gone.  It's not the crater it should have been like all the Brown Recluse bites you see.  I owe her my life.  She also said a prayer for me that day, too.  My husband tried really hard not to giggle, it was a little out there.  I reprimanded him in the car, "why are you laughing at that?  That was really sweet!"  "It's not that!  It's was just really animated, something from a movie."  "Okay, so that's how she prays, hush."  She's prayed for me many times and every time I've been very grateful.  I don't think she belongs to a certain religion, she just prays what she feels, and when she prays, she REALLY prays!  She places her hands on me, raises her hands to the sky, spits, the whole nine yards.  Nothing I say here is meant to be disrespectful, it just had to do with Fibromyalgia, so I thought we'd talk about it, just as friends.

She stopped by the house today and said she wanted to pray for me.  Nothing new, she does this for me often.  Before she prays, she tells me she saw this tv program where a preacher prayed for people with Fibromyaglia and they were cured.  "She said it was only emotional."  "Okay...."  She places a hand on my shoulder, one hand on my head, "Jesus, cure this woman of Fibromyalgia.  Release the histories of trauma from her past.  Take the histories that have ravaged her body and take them to you, Lord.  Release them!  Heal her, make her whole!  Let her mind have peace."  At this point, I can hear my children screaming inside the house, "you stupid idiot, I hate you!"  Yes, grant me peace.  If anything, grant me peace.  "Let her release these things and make her whole, now!  Take these things and symptoms and ....stuff... from her.  Amen."  "What symptoms are you having?"  Fibromyalgia?  How can I explain to someone in the 3 seconds I have before my kids kill themselves?  "There's a lot, the kids are killing each other, maybe I can call you sometime?"  She gives me an awkward stare.  Sigh..... ok, "um, well, with Fibromyalgia, there's just a lot of muscle pain, sleeping problems, headaches, uh, that kind of stuff?"  "Oh, so it's a problem of the soul."  Well, I've never quite heard it phrased that way.  I totally get people who don't understand Fibromyalgia.  I SO get it!  Fibromyalgia is confusing to the people who have it, why wouldn't it be confusing for someone who didn't?  If it were any other person, I might be offended.  She doesn't have a mean bone in her body, though.  She really does love me and is concerned for me.  Ha, if only I could tell you though, the number of times people with Fibromyalgia have heard the spiritual spiel.  We've heard of all your "brilliant" ideas, we really have.  Maybe if you just lost some weight, maybe if you went to counselling for this, maybe if you worked out more, ate this, prayed more.  Ugh, tell me something I haven't heard.  I'm skinny, I've been in therapy since I was three, I try to work out every day, I eat better than most people, I go to church weekly and pray a lot.  Maybe if my husband had prayed more?  Would his Diabetes go away?  Maybe if he lost some weight?  Nah, his BMI is smack dab in the middle of healthy.  I don't think that man could lose or gain a pound if his life depended on it.  Maybe your neighbor wouldn't have died of cancer if she had prayed more?  Use your brain more than your mouth.  Think before you speak.  I know you think (geez, and to those of you deliberately trying to be a jerk.) you're really trying to be helpful when you say, "honey, we're all tired.  Work is just hard on you right now.  Maybe a shopping spree would help?"  Fibromyalgia.  REAL disease.  Not lack of sex, not too much fat, not this, not that.  Disease.  Recognizable disease.  I know you really may be thinking you're only trying to help.  Think of this though, we've had this disease for years now.  On average, it takes ten years to get the correct diagnosis of Fibromyalgia.  You don't think we didn't think of those things first?  "Hot dayum!  I LOVE being fat, miserable, in so much pain!  Do you think my doctor will say it's Fibromyalgia?  THAT would be loads of fun!"  C'mon, we've done it all.  WAY before you thought of it.  We lost the weight, we do exercise, we do try to eat right for our bodies.  Probably better than you do!  So when you think you're being helpful, by making the, "maybe if you tried (insert annoying idea here)" remark, to the woman who's had Fibromyalgia for 30 years, think first.  I promise you she's tried it.

"Devils come out!!!"  If God made it so, we'd be free of cancer, heart disease, war, child abuse, all sorts of pain and danger.  That is NOT how God works!  So yeah, Fibromyalgia may be around for a while longer.