Hope and Despair

There is a memorable scene from the wonderful film adaptation of Anne of Green Gables between the young Anne and her foster mother Marilla.

Anne Shirley: Can't you even imagine you're in the depths of despair?
Marilla Cuthbert: No I cannot. To despair is to turn your back on God.

Another way of looking at despair, though, might be the feeling that God has turned his back on you. Things seem hopeless. The future looks grim.

“I go dreaming into the future, where I see nothing, nothing. I have no plans, no idea, no project, and, what is worse, no ambition. Something – the eternal ‘what’s the use?’ – sets its bronze barrier across every avenue that I open up in the realm of hypothesis.”
― Gustave Flaubert, Flaubert in Egypt: A Sensibility on Tour

The problem with despair in fibromyalgia, at least for me, is that the despair comes from the inability of my mind to see any future at all, an inability caused by the fibrofog. When the fibrofog is at its worst, the future simply does not exist. I lose perspective and the ability to see forward to the future place where hope resides. I am trapped in a now that is very unpleasant, with the hope of the future inaccessible. Hope is not just distant or far off, it becomes unimaginable. This is true despair.

Unlike degenerative diseases and diseases that offer a very certain fate, fibromyalgia has hope at its very core. Things can change. Even with something that is still incurable and barely treatable, it does not require a miracle for you to feel better. Whatever is tormenting you today may be dramatically reduced or completely gone tomorrow. The symptoms constantly change. They can get worse, yes, but they can and most likely will also get better, at least for awhile. No matter what symptoms I am suffering from, I can hold onto that hope of a future in which things are better.

Fibrofog can strip you of the very hope that is one of the saving graces of surviving fibromyalgia. How do you survive the one symptom that strips you of hope within in a condition where hope is one of the main things that keeps you going?

“Courage is not the absence of fear or despair; it is the capacity to continue on despite them, no matter how great or overwhelming they become.”
― Robert Fanney

The past couple of weeks I have struggled with fibrofog and despair. It has been a difficult time. It is during times like this that I long for, I crave for an unending nothingness free of the challenges of getting through day after day. I have things yet to do in this life, though. I have a responsibility to my wife to stay here for her as long as I can. Running away from life would be cowardly. So that leaves courage. Even when hope is gone, I can still find courage.

Does it take strength to have courage, or does courage give us strength? I believe it is the later. When hope is gone, courage can sustain us through.  It is about fighting for the best life you can have, not just for yourself, but for the people around you, no matter what the obstacles ahead of you are. Sometimes courage can help you find answers to make life better. Sometimes it can just help you hold on long enough until things do get better.

As the fibrofog lifts, as it always does, hope returns. There is a future, and there are days when I can do wonderful things. I just need to hold onto a little courage to help get me there.