The Ultimate “Poor Me”?

I tried a new massage therapist today. He did a pretty good job, but kept talking about himself and how great a therapist he is. At one point I mentioned my fibromyalgia (it’s relevant in this setting) and he apologized for missing that on my chart. Then he said that a lot of people with fibromyalgia have “energy problems” and that he is really good at releasing unhealthy energy from the bodies of his clients. I responded that I understand that science is now showing that muscles in the body have memory of trauma, that not just the brain remembers. I agreed that I could maybe have some such “energy” issues, residual from a college rape. He said, “Yes, a lot of the people I talk with who have fibromyalgia seem to have suffered something similar.” Then, he added, “Yes, fibromyalgia appears to be the ultimate ‘Poor Me’”.

Whhhhaaaaaaaaaaaaat!!!!!!????? Part of me wanted to jump off his table then. The other parts of me were saying, “He’s ignorant, Becky. Don’t listen to him. Just consider the source and don’t get mad.” So I asked, “Is this ‘Poor Me’ term you’re using something you’ve heard from the field of psychology?” Yes, it was. Something he read in a book by so-and-so who breaks human personality profiles into four types. OK, that explained some of it.

But it rankled, and still does. Later I kept thinking, “The Ultimate ‘Poor Me’?” As though all we fibromyalgia patients need to do is stop the self-pitying behaviors and we would get better?

Maybe I should try telling my weather-related flares to stop being so self-pitying - only on bad weather days. Let’s try telling that to my left leg which locks up, so it can explain to my right leg, which never locks up, why it is more self-pitying than the right one. We’ll try telling that to my teeth when they get infected following dental work, since they – and their infections - are apparently linked into my consciousness. Let’s tell my skin rashes, my IBS, my knuckle pain, my foot pain, my bursas, and my flaming back which only flames between the hours of 1 pm and 8 pm, apparently my most self-pitying times of day.

“Poor Me”, subjected to yet another misinformed know-it-all about fibromyalgia who has never walked in my poor flaming body.

Fibromyalgia is neurological, Asshole.

I am heartily tired of hearing about behavioral cures, as though we can fix this thing with simple lifestyle or mental-behavioral adjustments. Do we tell a cancer patient to “take more naps” or “think positive thoughts”? OK, well, yes, we do, but we don’t expect her cancer to go away as a result.

I think physicians offer these little pats on the head because they sometimes are misinformed and have precious little else to offer the fibromyalgia patient. Nice thought, Docs, but you’re doing a disservice to people who are very ill, to propagate the notion that all or most of this disease’s symptoms can be mitigated with behavioral changes. I know our understanding of the impact of the psychological on the physical has swung like a pendulum, and that just now it is toward the far side of “Positive thinking can cure anything”. But I’ll sure be glad when it swings back to a more reasonable setting. I hate to think of all the sick and dying people being blamed for not thinking themselves out of it. Just what sick people need is more guilt.

Well, I think I’ll go and have a little discussion with my left leg – a nice positive, upbeat chat.