ABSTRACT
Yes, when I see a healthcare professional, I am a fibromyalgia “patient,” but more importantly I am a human being — a living, breathing, feeling person who must face, on a daily basis, a constellation of distressing symptoms that cause both physical and mental anguish. Like millions of others with fibromyalgia, not only do I have to live with the consequences and challenges that its chronic symptoms cause, I have to live with the fact that there are many people who give no credence to my condition, dismissing my suffering because they don’t understand it or don’t want to get involved with those of us who are seen as “difficult patients who constantly complain.”
