Marilyn’s Story:

Before I begin my story, I want to express my deepest appreciation and gratitude for this web-site.  Thank you from the bottom of my heart for allowing me to tell the world “My Story.”  If I were no longer here tomorrow, I could rest in the peace of knowing you gave me the opportunity to tell the whole world the story of my life, with fibromyalgia.  How it not only destroyed my life, but also the lives of the people I loved.

This is my story…

My name is Marilyn Masonis.  I am a 48 year old woman, and I have suffered the devastating effects of Fibromyalgia/chronic myofascial pain, spinal disc disease, and other painful conditions for more than 17 years after a rear-end motor vehicle accident.  Today, I found your web-site out of pure desperation and despair.  The years of living with and battling these truly painful conditions, has left me desperately seeking out some kind of help or support I so badly need.  The daily pain, the loneliness and isolation, is too much to bear at times.  It seems I hang on for dear life at times.  It hasn’t been an easy road.  It’s been a most difficult one.  A very hard and very painful road.  Physically, as well as mentally.  I believe my problem is, yes, I suffered a terrible accident.  But not only did I suffer from it, but also, I survived it.  My experience has been that sometimes in this life, it can be too painful, too much to survive sometimes.  Too physically painful to survive.  Remember, this is MY story.  And this is what I want and need for you all to understand living with fibromyalgia, and other chronic and very painful conditions.  This is what has happened to me.  And has also happened to other people.  I am not alone.  This kind of pain, has so often times been too much for me to bear.  Too much to overcome.  I know this is hard for a lot of people to understand.  But since my car accident, living with excruciating, and many years of unrelieved pain on a daily basis, can be too much for anyone.  And I lost everything, and I still continue to suffer.  I don’t have anything to look forward to but another 17 years of the same.  When does physical suffering really become too much to bear?  When someone has lived years and years of unrelieved suffering, and no hope in sight.  No cure.  Doesn’t the quality of life become more important than quantity of life?  Or how long a person lives?  A human being can only suffer so much.  Even on the cross, a human being can be tortured only for so long.  Even so, out of desperation, I forced myself to get out of bed and try and seek some kind of help or support online.  I had to, I have to try.  I can’t do this by myself.  It’s too much.  Seventeen years already, and another day of no hope?  Just more suffering in silence?  I can’t .  Do people think I complain too much because of my pain?  Do people not want to be around me because I seem too pessimistic?  So, the right thing to do is to not say anything?  Not express how I am suffering?  Fibromyalgia can many times be a devastating condition.  A lot of times you feel all alone.  Like no-one understands.  How could they possibly understand?  They can’t.  You hurt so much for so long, you don’t even want to live anymore.  You can’t.  It’s too much for anyone to bear.  Why do we have to continue to suffer?  But really, we don’t have a choice.  We must continue to suffer.  We complain to our doctors, because we have to.  We need to stop hurting.  It’s not fair that we are in so much pain, and everyone else doesn’t hurt like we do, and couldn’t possibly understand.  If we are lucky enough to find one doctor who understands, that doctor is a saint, an angel.  Because so many doctors don’t understand pain.  That’s what pain management doctors are for.  This isn’t a life, its torture.  It’s complete bondage.  This is what fibromyalgia is like.  We lose everything good we’ve ever known.  It’s gone forever.  We become someone else.  We look forward to the day when we no longer leave foot-prints in the sand.  And look forward to complete rest.  The rest that we so deeply deserve.  I thank you so very very much, for listening to my story.  Please, do what you can to bring awareness to this devastating condition.  When someone gets cancer, it ends one day.  One day, when they are put to rest.  With fibromyalgia, it’s like a cancer eating you up inside, every day, year after year, your whole life you suffer, but there is no end.  There is no rest.  You can’t sleep because the pain won’t let you.  Please, reach out to anyone you know that has fibromyalgia, or any other kind of painful condition.  Let them know you care.  You may not understand, but you can at least try.  Some people feel all alone.  Pain and suffering can be a very lonely place.  Be a hero for someone.  Many people with severe afflictions have been abandoned.  Abandoned by friends.  Abandoned by their families.  Imagine you were abandoned by someone you loved because you had a disease or a condition that you couldn’t help.  It happens every single day.  If you’re healthy, count your lucky stars and be grateful.  Because it could all end in a second.  Like it did for me and so many others.  I will keep on struggling each and every day.  Fighting the pain and depression.  But now I have a voice.  This website has given me a voice.  And the tears fall as I write this.  Though my faith isn’t as nearly as strong as it could be, I pray that the Almighty God of the Universe blesses this website more than anything has ever been blessed.  God knows we have had much more than our share of suffering.  I have finally found a place, a person, somewhere, where someone can hear my voice, my cries.  Thanks to you.  Your website is exactly what I need, exactly what I was looking for.  I feel someone understands now.  Someone truly cares what I am going through.  You see, I lost everything.  I use to have a family, a house, a career, a business, a life.  Then after my accident, I slowly began to lose it all.  I never got better.  Even after the dozens of doctors, and therapies, injections, medications.  My husband grew more and more frustrated, more angry.  I never got better.  I changed in his eyes.  He didn’t see me as his wife anymore.  I became someone else.  He watched me suffer tremendously.  And he couldn’t understand.  He lost his wife, his son’s mother, our other income, our other business.  He lost a clean house.  I lost my health, I lost my husband of 23 years, I lost my son, my son lost his mother, I lost family, we all lost a family.  I lost my home, my career, my business.  I became disabled.  The severe pain became unbearable, and so many times I wanted to die.  I just couldn’t hang on any longer.  I stumbled upon your website just today.  Thanks again so much, for allowing me to share “My Story…”

With Love, Marilyn Masonis, Xoxoxo