Well, actually, I hope you don't mind my saying, but I think all this is the case for quite a few people without fibro, just sensitive bodies, and certainly in my case pre-fibro: Aside from my sensitive skin/body making me also wear just organic cotton, I need specific shoes without heels, i.e. sneakers in the summer and "barefoot" shoes/boots or Roots in the winter, no room for compromise however special the occasion may be. Last compromise was colleagues suggesting me to try specific trainers (Samba) with very low heels for playing indoor football. After playing in them for about 40' legs and back were hurting, so I got back into my sneakers. Pre-fibro - but usually feeling very ill for a few days after a game. Now I cd only manage 5' I guess... But it was great fun, good memories of stopping balls in goal and shooting goals. I prefer to forget that I always got 5-10 bigger or smaller injuries, which sometimes lasted for 3 months.
Just wondering why you have coats which hurt you? Is it for special occasions? I've thrown all clothes away that hurt me, including over-heating etc. E.g. I don't bother with pullovers any more, over my short- and long-sleeve T-shirts I need 1-2 hoodies with a zip that I can quickly adapt to the temperature/weather. Pity for my wife tho, who'd love me to dress up more sometimes.
my life thou and I own it!
Fully agreed... And mine is mine...
on another note “what is pain for”?
I guess you mean not the objective reason, but the sense/purpose of it.
Similar to "what is life for?" I thought a lot about that in my teens and twenties, and I was pretty radically questioning my reason to live. I developed the opinion that there are general, more objective reasons (e.g. for spreading itself) and more specific, subjective reasons (e.g. for me: to spread love & compassion) and the question has limits (e.g. we can't make ourselves anorganic, so may as well just accept it).
It can also be connected to the questions "what is suffering for?/what can explain suffering?", particularly difficult for people like me who believe in God and/or the power of love and goodness, for which I've also amassed many answers somewhere between objective (e.g. it's a result of human freedom OTOH and the finiteness of nature OTO; suffering makes love and empathy necessary - giving it and accepting it) and subjective (e.g. may have its purpose for me), has limits (I can just accept it, no choice anyway, but happier) and am still occasionally adding one every few years (e.g. the finiteness of nature seems a kind of freedom too).
So to develop answers from these two questions and their answer possibilities, the more objective life-reasons for pain could be seen as normally helping survival of my life, human life, so indirectly all life, so helping spreading it, and pain being the more physical part of suffering, altho mental suffering could also be called pain. My subjective life-'purpose' of pain would be to spread love & compassion, but I think most people here could agree otherwise they wdnt be here (spreading meaning giving
and taking). The more objective suffering-reasons for pain would be the finiteness and freedom of nature (plus again it spawning love/empathy, for the survival & more happiness of all,
in spite of the suffering). The subjective part of my pain is it forces me to self-care, i.e. to balance my wanting to help others or define myself by my activities and doing a lot, and realize that I am an other too, and I am precious even if I can no longer do anything much. People have always been telling me that, but I didn't want to listen. I don't know if the imbalance had its part in causing my fibro, but I don't really care. It's right for me.
Now
our fibro pain seems unfair in that a) it seems to have no cause that gives a clue what to do about it (so it seems "nociplastic", i.e. no apparent 'injuries'), b) in that it can hit people even in their teens and twenties who can't explain it like I can later on in life, and c) in that whatever made it, e.g. not caring enough about ourselves, was not really 'our fault', it had many good reasons. But OTOH it still means it is there to make us self-care, that's its purpose, OTO all life, like all of nature, is only partly just/fair, has its rules and freedom.
And that brings us to to the limits of the question and all answers: After all is said and done, we do better if we generally accept it as it is, like sunkacola's dogs do, like Jemima's radical acceptance does. And accepting it allows us to start again with saying and doing, it can empower us to improve, starting now, so not resigning, but slowly working at keeping the quality of life and happiness up as far as we can. It is praps comparable to aging, the main expression of the finiteness of nature: Some people don't have long to live (or don't have enough time to live), but it's about finding quality time as far as possible under the circumstances. For ourselves and/or for others, as we can....
