Since it is now the month of May I figured I would take the time to post a little personal post away from the politics about #Fibromyalgia, an illness I have been living through since I was a teen.
I am in constant pain. I use talk to text because typing often irritates my hands.
I can walk but some days I have to use a cane because of muscle pain.
I can sing without issue, but playing guitar is limited to the length of one song at a time, thus the shift towards more reggae without the guitar as the featured instrument.
I was jumped by five neonazis in Effingham IL on a debate field trip and sustained some injuries that kept irritating me well over a year after and this led me to go to the doctor where I was diagnosed with Fibromyalgia. I wasn't diagnosed with Sjögren's syndrome until about 2017, so all the while I had additional symptoms that I thought was just a very severe case of Fibromyalgia but was actually two comorbid illnesses. This secondary illness being an autoimmune illness explained why even though I felt terrible a lot of the time, I never got any type of infections or colds.
Due to the constant pain, I developed a very high pain threshold. I always have pain anyway so what's a little bit extra in a fight? This led me to participate in levels of violence that most women would not normally do. I took risks, especially being an antiracist #Skinhead, that ended up getting in fights where normal people probably would have simply capitulated, "been the bigger person" and not have taken such risks.
To help fight the pain, in high school I began weight training in my senior year.
I took classes in Krav Maga because I read that it was developed for even disabled people or old women to be able to defeat the Nazis in the streets of Third Reich Europe. I subsequently taught KM lessons at my old synagogue as well.
I've never received a disability check for my illness, which is comorbid with #SjogrensSyndrome. I fought through manual labor jobs, skilled labor jobs & more my whole life without complaint.
Regardless of the physical pain and subsequent fatigue that fighting the good fight may cause me, I know that HaShem will be my refuge always.