Reflection and Introspection!

Reflection and Introspection!

Fibromyalgia is horrible to live with, but I suppose living with someone who has fibromyalgia can be almost as bad.  Especially if you don't know they have it.  Having someone who has been fairly active all their life, just sit on their butt now, not wanting to do very much in the way of physical activity.  Even yard work, which used to be a pleasure, is now more difficult.  So I suppose if you live with someone, that now isn't as active or as interested in anything, it can be hard.

What made things worse in my situation is the approved drug for Fibromyalgia pain relief and control is Cymbalta.  I started taking this in 2009 and the pain that had been getting worse wasn't  gone, but I was able to function.  Now the control of the pain was great, but Cymbalta is an anti-depression drug and developed for the treatment of depression.  Except, I wasn't taking it for depression, but do you think the drug knows that?  Of course not!  So, here I am, taking a fairly healthy dose of Cymbalta, "The antidepressant" and I started feeling as if not matter what the world throws at me, it will all be all right!  No, it won't you fool!  So here I am, I have a good job and for the most part, unbenounced to me, I am full of antidepressant, so when the economy took a dive and the president of the company sold his half to the vice-president, the vice-president, in order to cut costs, cut staff.  Me!

All my life, I would get laid off for reasons other than performance, and find a new job within a few months.  Well not this time!  Was it the illness?  Was it the medication?  Was it my home environment, which other than my children, wasn't very friendly at this point?  Perhaps every company found themselves already having their token middle aged white male?

So it was about mid-2013 when due to the divorce I no longer had any health benefits and I had to wean down off of my Cymbalta due to prescription costs.  At that time I felt like I had a "sure, if it is what you want and it will make you happy, then let's do it, because I want to see you happy" attitude, but this was due to the antidepressant.  So with no benefits, the monthly cost of the medication was $800 so I could no longer take it and had to stretch out what I had left, but that is when all hell broke loose with my emotions and I found myself in a deep dark funk!

Fortunately, the manufacturer of Cymbalta has a program that allows me to get the medication at no cost helping me take the medication to this day.  But that time of depression, gave me insight into what was happening to me medically and with my prescriptions, and how either or both affect my mental state.

So to this day, I struggle with letting the Fibromyalgia control my life, letting the medication control my life, or allowing myself to control my life!