By Cathy Kean, Guest Columnist

I am an unwelcome, uninvited, germinating presence that has come to invade your peaceful existence. You will never be the same. I will fill you with misery and take over every aspect of your life. My name is fibromyalgia.

When I am feeling especially mischievous, I will cause you aches and extreme pain. I will rob you of your strength, energy and cognition. You will try to formulate a complete sentence, but only to be able to grasp a few basic words. This is called fibro fog.

I will make it difficult for you to concentrate on anything and your memory will suffer drastically! You will be told constantly by others, “Don’t you remember I told you?” They’ll be thinking you are intentionally trying to get out of something.

I see your frustration and I see your sorrow. Once you were an outgoing, social and engaging individual. Now you are pretty much a recluse. See? I am good at what I do.

You think you can get rid of me by going from doctor to doctor? Silly one, you have been to 8 doctors already and they all discount you by saying, “There is nothing wrong. It’s all in your head.”

Wreaking havoc is what I do best. I will rob you of sleep and much more. I’ll make your body temperature go crazy hot when it’s cold, and cold when it’s hot. You will never feel comfortable again.

I’ll give you digestive issues, anxiety and depression. You will experience lack of control, grief, worry, immune dysfunction, chest pain, panic attacks, inflammation, insomnia and memory loss. Your body will be overly sensitive to pretty much everything, thanks to me!

I will introduce a new sensation into your existence called “noxious stimuli.” It could be a bad smell, bright light, noise, anything. Because your body is now overly sensitive, it will react strongly to just about anything. The lights will be too bright when they’re just fine for everyone else. The same goes for visual chaos, heat, cold and pressure on your skin.

Your nerves will overreact to the things around you and your brain will get overloaded when it gets these signals that intensify your pain.

I will attack you when you least expect it. You will have no way of knowing when, because I am always present, always lurking around! This will hurt your family, your career, your outlook and your sense of self. I will follow you everywhere, never a reprieve!

When I am angry, your days will be hell and your nights sleepless. I’ll be behind you, beside you, everywhere, every day. To the point where you will not remember a time when you lived outside of my grasp.

Imagine feeling like you were burning from the inside out. The stress will be huge and will exacerbate all your other conditions! Your bones will feel like someone is using a jackhammer on them, especially during a change of weather.

Emotionally, I will make it so anything, even something little, will stress and worry you, which will make your body rebel and symptoms flare up just for the fun of it. Your nerves will create phantom itches that will make you scratch yourself raw. The simplest tasks will take you 10 times longer and five times as much energy to finish.

Because I am an invisible illness, others will not be able to see your pain, suffering and degree of sickness. You will hear comments such as:

• “But you don’t look sick.”

• “Must be nice to sit in bed all day.”

• “Your pain can’t be that bad.”

• “If you ate better, you’d feel better.”

You will be called lazy, a liar, faker, fabricator and more.

Because I make you hurt so much, you will need pain relief. The most effective and efficient medication for your symptoms will be prescription opiates. But they have been stigmatized and demonized by doctors, family, government and more. You will be called a drug seeker, an addict, and a druggie. So many hurtful, demeaning labels will be placed upon you which will hurt, damage and wound your soul.

Why? You didn’t ask for this!

It’s because of ignorance! The media has inundated the public by selling them a sensationalized, false and inaccurate narrative about opioids to sell papers and get ratings. Judgmental people who jump to conclusions without researching the true answers.

Shame on them for their cruelty. They make my job so easy, which is to inflict pain, suffering and mayhem.

So here I am, fibromyalgia, your new friend. I am always looking for others to invade and conquer. Unless you’ve walked in the shoes of others who are afflicted, you will never know the depth of their struggles.

Cathy Kean lives in California. She is a grandmother of 7 and mother of 4. Cathy has lived with intractable pain for 14 years from a botched surgery, along with fibromyalgia, arachnoiditis, stiff person syndrome, lupus, Parkinson's disease and insomnia. Cathy is the creator and administrator of the Facebook pages Chronic Illness Awareness and Advocacy Coalition and Pain is Pain.