When My Body Spoke

Living with Fibromyalgia: My journey from invisible pain to finally being believed.

“Healing doesn’t always start in the body. Sometimes, it begins with three simple words: I believe you.” ~Goodmoodism

In early 2020, my life was full of motion. I hiked for hours. I started running. One morning, I ran 10 kilometers without stopping, something I’d never thought my body could do. I remember feeling proud. Strong. Alive.

And then in late 2020, slowly, the life inside me began to dim.

It started with exhaustion. Not the kind that a nap could fix, but the kind that settled deep in my body and stayed there. I woke up tired, moved through the day tired, and went to bed feeling like I hadn’t really rested at all.

Then my mind started to feel foggy. I couldn’t think clearly, and everything took a little more effort. My tongue even felt strange, heavy, almost numb, like the words had to fight their way out. It scared me, but I didn’t say much. No one really noticed, but I knew something was off.

Then came the pain.

It started in my hands, then spread to my fingers, arms, legs, feet, toes, chest, and back. It always began the same way, a small pulse in one spot, almost easy to ignore at first. Then the pulsing grew stronger, spreading wider, until it felt like the whole area was throbbing.

Imagine turning up the volume on a song, very slowly at first, then higher and higher until the sound fills the room and there’s nowhere left to escape it. That’s what the pain felt like, a noise inside my body that wouldn’t stop getting louder.

I forgot what it felt like to be pain-free. That’s maybe the cruelest part, not just the pain itself, but the forgetting. I started to believe it was normal, that maybe everyone felt this way and just didn’t talk about it.

I went to my doctor, again and again. Most times she said, “It’s in your head.” I saw specialists. Nothing. No answers.

By 2022, I was breaking. My almost 7 years relationship ended. I was on sick leave. My nights were long, dark hours of tossing, shifting, curling up. I would stare at the ceiling, my eyes burning, muscles aching, waiting for the pain to ease. It never did.

And in the quiet of those nights, the thoughts came: Maybe I have something rare. Maybe I’m dying. I just turned 40. Is this how it ends? What a miserable life, and I’ve done nothing I’m proud of.

I never thought about ending my life, but I wished I could just stop existing. Not because I wanted to die, but because I wanted the pain to stop.

Then, in April 2023, I made one of the best decisions of my life. I called my old physician and asked if I could return to her care. She said yes.

When I sat in her office, she smiled gently and asked, “What can I do for you?”

I pulled out my phone, I had everything written there. Documenting three years of symptoms, dates, patterns, things I had noticed but couldn’t explain. My hands trembled as I scrolled and read out loud.

She didn’t interrupt. She didn’t look away. She just listened.

Finally, I told her about the other doctor who said it was all in my head. My voice broke. Tears spilled down my face.

She stood up, checked a few things, and then looked at me. “I think you have fibromyalgia,” she said.

I blinked. “Fibro…what?”

She explained it, how it’s common in women, how hard it can be to diagnose, how many doctors don’t even recognize it.

And then she said the words that cracked something open in me: “I believe you. And I’ll help you get an appointment with a specialist as soon as possible.”

In Germany, that can take months, even a year. But she meant it.

Two weeks later, I got a letter: my appointment was set for two weeks later at the end of May.

When I met the specialist, we sat together for nearly two hours. He listened, really listened. He asked about everything, from the pain in my feet to the fog in my head. My sleep, traumas, depression, my anxieties, and so on. He took notes. He asked again. He wanted to understand.

For the first time in three years, I felt seen.

Before I left, he said, “We’ll do a blood test to check for any infection. In a few weeks, you’ll have your results.”

Two weeks later, the letter arrived.

Fibromyalgia.

After three years of constant pain, after being told it was all in my head, after nights of crying silently into my pillow, I finally had a name for what was happening to me.

It didn’t cure the pain. But it gave me something I hadn’t had in years: hope.

What Fibromyalgia Really Is:

Fibromyalgia is hard to explain, mostly because you can’t see it. It is a chronic condition that affects how the body processes pain. It doesn’t show up on an X-ray or a blood test. It hides. But it’s there in every ache, every sleepless night, every “I’m fine” when you’re anything but.

It’s like your body’s alarm system gets stuck in the “on” position. The pain, the fatigue, the fog, they’re all signals from a body that’s been running on survival mode for too long.

Decades of stress, trauma, pressure, heartbreak, they build up quietly until one day, your body can’t whisper anymore. It has to shout.

That’s fibromyalgia. It’s not “in your head.” It’s in your nerves, your muscles, your whole being, trying to tell you that you’ve carried too much for too long.

And even though it can’t be seen, it’s real. Very real.

I will always be grateful to the doctors who listened, who believed me, who gave me back my reality.

Because sometimes, healing begins the moment someone says: “I believe you.”

Writing this wasn’t easy, but I wanted to share it, because maybe someone out there is feeling lost, in pain, and unheard, just like I once did. And if these words can help even one person feel a little less alone, then it’s worth it.

Have you ever heard of fibromyalgia, or do you know someone living with it?

If you live with fibromyalgia, what’s one thing you wish people understood about it?

With a quiet smile,
GOO:DMOO:DISM