To my friends, I need help...

This document is for those who have fibromyalgia and for those who have friends who do.

It is a bit of an unusual document but I put it together out of my own experience of struggling to adequately explain my condition to friends and therefore the difficulty of asking for help, something that has affected both my husband and I as I have been unwell and has he has had to live with me being unwell.

When you an ongoing illness the greatest thing you can have is a supportive circle of friends. A single person cannot bear the weight of another’s ill health, so even if they have a partner or a family, they will still benefit from help from others.

I thought that being able to give this to a friend might be helpful when needing to ask for help, even if you were to say "I know this is weird, but if you really want to be my friend, would you please read this?"

It is a very general overview, but that is so it can apply to a wide variety of people. The idea is that it gets the issue of ill health out in the open and hopefully provides an opportunity to talk about it further. As the friend of a fibro suffered, you need to find out specifically how it affects them because it is always different. As the sufferer of fibro, once you have had the initial discussion, try to think of what specifics you would like to ask for help with.

Sometimes pride gets in the way of asking for help. But we are human; we cannot do it all, even when we are healthy. Society works best if we support each other, care for each other, and live with concern for others.

Feel free to print this off and use it or to direct friends to the website. I just ask that credit be given if used or printed. If printed, add your name under the 'FROM' to personalise it.

I hope you find this helpful.

This post has been duplicated under Art & Health so it is always easy to find.

#fibro #fibromyalgia #health #help #friends #illhealth #askingforhelp