Is Fibromyalgia real? - A conversation about pain, labels and healing.

Where this conversation begins

 Is fibromyalgia real?

 It's a question I've heard many times. Sometimes it's asked with genuine curiosity, sometimes with doubts and sometimes quietly by people living with it who are simply tired of not being believed,

 I want to answer it. Honestly, from the inside.

 I was diagnosed with Fibromyalgia in 2021.

After well over two decades of living with persistent pain.

 I know life with constant pain and flare-ups and I  know life without them.

 Holding both of those experiences makes the contrast crystal clear.

But my pain-free life did not just land in my lap. It came from asking different questions, listening in a different way and doing the deep work. 

So lets have the conversation

Is fibromyalgia real? Yes.

Real, means existing in fact and the pain and symptoms of fibromyalgia are undeniably experienced. 

Nobody who has lived through a flare up needs to be told that.

 I know it from both sides. 

I've lived with persistent pain and flare-ups and I've lived without them.

 That's exactly why I can say this with complete certainty, the pain was real.

And so is healing.

What does fibromyalgia feel like day to day? 

For me, it felt like pain all over my body and agonising crunch in my feet; heaviness through my back; an aching jaw, chest pain, knots in my gut and on top of all that came the foggy head and the sleepless nights.

This drained my energy and my clarity, day after day.

 If you're reading this and quietly nodding along, I see you. 

And I hear you.

There's also something so brutal about the internal noise that starts after being told, "but your tests are all normal." You begin to question everything about who you are and why life feels so hard for you.

If the symptoms are real, why question the label? 

Because fibromyalgia is still a label. 

It's a medical term managed with classification systems that often serve billing and prescription pathways. 

Western society loves the pharmaceutical label. 

A label label can be genuinely useful. 

They can bring recognition, access to support and the relief of knowing you're not imagining it.

 But a label can distract us from the most important question of all, "why are all these symptoms here in the first place?"

There is no effect without cause.

 Questioning the label isn't questioning you. It's refusing to let the conversation stop at a name for it. 

How can focus in on symptoms?

It invites a deeper investigation into root causes, physiological psychological and lifestyle based.

When we detach from the identity of a diagnosis from; "I am someone with fibromyalgia." or "It's my Fibromyalgia" and recognise "I am currently experiencing..(be specific)"

We can start to listen more closely to what the body is actually trying to say and we invite the possibility of change.

What do you mean by 'your body speaks? Are you listening?'

 Pain is a signal, not an enemy.

 It's information asking for attention and care. 

So much of living with chronic pain can feel like a battle against your own body. But when we get curious, instead of combative, we create space for change. 

How does fibromyalgia compare to a condition like endometriosis? 

Endometriosis involves tissue growing where it shouldn't and that tissue can often be seen sometimes on scans are more definitively during surgery.

 Fibromyalgia on the other hand doesn't present clear markers on scans. 

Yet, many people with endometriosis still report pain after surgery. 

That tells us something important. Physical interventions don't always resolve the pain picture.

Pain is rarely about tissue. It's about the whole system, including the nervous system that interprets every signal.

Are you saying fibromyalgia is psychosomatic? 

Let's talk about that word, because it carries so much weight.

For many people. living with fibromyalgia, 'psychosomatic' has landed as "it's all in your head" as if the pain were imagined, exaggerated or somehow their fault.

 That is not what it means.

 Psychosomatic comes from two Greek words 'psyche', meaning mind and 'Soma' meaning body; simply blended, they describe the mind and the body influencing each other. 

And that's true for every one of us every single day. 

A racing heart before a difficult conversation. 

A knotted stomach when we're anxious.

A tension headache after a stressful week, none of these are imaginary. 

They're the body responding to what the mind is carrying. 

So yes, there is undeniably a psychosomatic dimension to fibromyalgia and that isn't a dismissal. 

It's one of the most hopeful things I could tell you, because if the mind and nervous system are part of how pain is created and amplified, they can also be part of how it eases. 

Psychosomatic Pain Is real.

 By now. You may have even realised that when you're under increased stress, your symptoms are exasperated. 

Are our emotions really connected to physical pain?

Yes, emotional pain often expresses itself with the body shaping tension, inflammation and how we perceive pain. 

Persistent symptoms can be a calling, an invitation to explore what we're holding and what can now safely be released with awareness, understanding and change.

What kinds of emotional patterns can fuel pain? 

In my experience, the key common driver are:

-Self-sacrifice 

-People pleasing 

-Suppressing your voice to keep the peace

-Over focusing on external demands

-Internal comparison and judgement 

-Subconsciously re-living the emotions of past traumatic experiences. 

-Holding grudges or a need for revenge.

These patterns tax the nervous system and body until they explode loud enough to be heard underneath it all. 

On my own journey, there was a lot of suppressed, anger, fear and disappointed feelings, disconnect from childhood experiences.

I'd learn to swallow anger, fear and frustrations, because swallowing them felt safer than saying them.

 Perhaps you recognise a little of yourself here?

Isn't trauma something big and dramatic? 

Not always.

Trauma is not just one big one off event. 

Emotional suppression and emotional pain felt repeatedly over time can result in trauma too.

Swallowing your words again and again; putting everyone else first for years; holding it all together, whilst quietly falling apart inside, saying yes, when you really mean no; Because once upon a time, being the good little girl avoided conflict.

 From the outside, none of it may look dramatic, but the body and the nervous system fill every moment of it, that contradictory "I'm Fine", is emotional neglect.

 I love the quote for my recent poem; What can be said in the mind can be felt in the hand. (A calling to pay attention to your internal narrative).

So is fibromyalgia real? 

Yes, the pain is real. 

The exhaustion is real. 

The fog, the sleepless nights, the frustration of not being believed, all of it is real and here's what I most want you to take from this conversation; Healing is real too. 

I'm not sharing my story because the journey was easy or quick or because I stumbled up on a magic fix. I'm sharing it because after more than 20 years of variety of pain symptoms, I know the presence of pain is a feeling that is very real.

I also know what is possible on the other side.

When I stopped letting a diagnosis define who I was and started listening to what my body had been trying to tell me all along, things began to shift.

Is your body speaking? It may have been speaking for a very long time.

 There may have been a recent trigger that's gone into a full flowered shutdown, or you may have had a sudden realisation. 

Either way, perhaps now is the moment to listen gently curiously and with compassion. 

Perhaps now is the time you stop giving your power away to a multi trillion dollar industry that survives on people being solely reliant on a subscription to medication. 

Perhaps now is the time to unlock your own inner power. 

Perhaps as a society, we now stop labelling people with conditions simply for having real human emotions, real human experiences and support them to see their strengths and the future they get to create. 

You can heal from this; not just temporarily. You have your nervous system for life, with the right tools, You get to shape what happens next. You get to create the life of your dreams. 

Stop asking "What is happening to me?" 

Start asking "What happened to me?" What do you choose to do with that awareness? 

With so much Love, 

Reanne

Reanne@Fibro2Phoenix.com

Transformational Breathwork Coach, Fibro to Phoenix at The Phoenix Movement CIC 

This blog shares my lived experience and the experiences of the coaching clients I have worked with. It isn't a substitute for medical advice. Please keep working alongside your GP or healthcare team and never stop or change medication without speaking to them first. 

Whether you are looking to start your journey to a life free from constant pain, or have been on this journey for a while, I'd love to talk about how we could support you. Please get in touch.

If you've been left with more questions around how trauma may be shaping your experience head to www.Traumality.com, where director Ton Mazzone, very clearly shows how trauma can have a huge impact on one's experience.