Wool Goddess

Sometimes I have to remind myself that I can only do so much.

I woke this morning to a beautiful rain shower as I drank my coffee. The sound reminded me of calmness, and the air felt purified. It was such a wholesome moment that made me feel thankful for my little, ordinary life.

Contentment lived in my mind, but a whirlwind was brewing beneath it. Two contrasting things can often exist at the same time. I became much more aware of this through chronic illness. Yes, some days I am in pain and feel helpless, but I am also very content and happy.

My mind was like the old version of me, the one who had to be in super-organised mode, ready to get five sons up, dressed, washed and out the door, then plough through the streets with a heavy double pram like a woman ploughing her land. But this was no longer who I was.

My sons are all grown, and I haven’t done the school run in many years, but the feeling was still there. Maybe it was an ancestral past-life thing, and the cows needed milking, the steps scrubbing and the brass cleaning. Who knows?

The truth was, I didn’t need to do anything or even be anywhere. I needed to update my mind as it woke hyper-focused, whilst my body woke in a flare.

Holding my body as I drank my coffee was painful. My arms ached as though they’d been beaten with a bat the day before. Today was a rest day. A gentle crochet day. A lie-on-the-couch day. And I needed to remind myself that this was all I needed to do.

I’ve done minimal crochet stitches, hardly a row, but that’s fine. If all I manage is a row, then that row needs to be celebrated. It is progress.

This summer, my fibromyalgia has been particularly rough. Some years seem to be much worse than others, and I’ve found myself wondering whether the weather is partly to blame.

Living in North West England, we’re certainly used to changeable weather. One minute it’s warm and humid, the next it’s cooler, damp and raining. There is some evidence that changes in temperature, humidity and barometric pressure can affect pain levels in some people with fibromyalgia, although everyone’s experience is different.

But I’ve also been thinking about what else has been happening in my life.

I’ve recently completed six months of intensive CBT therapy, which has been a huge commitment. CBT can be really valuable when you’re living with chronic pain, but six months of intensive therapy is also a lot to process. Emotional stress, concentration, disrupted routines, and simply the effort of working through difficult things can all leave you feeling exhausted.

And perhaps that’s the thing about fibromyalgia: there isn’t always one single reason for a flare.

Maybe it’s the weather. Maybe it’s medication. Maybe I’ve done too much on a day when I felt relatively good. Maybe I overstretched my body once the pain medication worked. Maybe it’s the accumulated effect of months of intensive therapy. Or perhaps it’s a combination of all of these things.

I’m learning that managing fibromyalgia isn’t necessarily about finding the cause. Sometimes it’s about noticing the patterns and being a little kinder to yourself when your body says, “I’ve had enough.”

So, if you’ve also had a particularly difficult summer with fibromyalgia, you’re definitely not alone.

And if you’ve been wondering whether the weather is affecting you, it might be part of the picture, but it may not be the whole story.

Sometimes the most important thing we can do is listen to our bodies, put down the expectations of who we used to be, and allow ourselves to rest without feeling that we need to earn it.