I didn’t know what fibromyalgia was until the ticking time bomb inside of me exploded. I was 28 and had just gotten married to a wonderful man. I was, also unbeknownst to me at the time, pregnant with my second child. I had a precious boy of then 4 ½ years old to look after and spent all my free time with him. I had a promising position in an education service center and was hoping to become a bilingual education teacher.

A few months before that, I was in a car accident. The accident totaled my car but I walked away with just some whiplash. I believed I had come out of the wreckage virtually unscathed, but boy was I wrong!

A few months later, after I was safely in Austin – I had moved from Boston, MA for a variety of reasons I won’t go into here – I lost usage of my wrists and had horrible neck pain. I had x-rays – we couldn’t find anything. Same with my wrists. My new doctor, who I believe was fresh out of medical school at the time, advised me to go to physical therapy. We thought it could be carpal tunnel.

It wasn’t.

I also went to see a psychiatrist as I thought I was losing it. I wasn’t sure if I was homesick at first but when I became suicidal, I knew I had to get help. The psychiatrist gave me some medication and told me to lose weight. You see I had gained some due to hypothyroidism, which I later learned was a related condition, and the pain. I couldn’t exercise.

I was also depressed because my wrists didn’t work and I was mostly doing office work at my new job. I had to quit abruptly which pained me greatly. Then, I got the happy news I was pregnant so I decided not to take the psychiatric meds and white-knuckle it through my pregnancy.

Little did I know how difficult a choice that would be.