I’m on vacation in SoCal getting some much needed R&R here on the perfectly breezy and beautiful Venice Beach. And I’m currently mediating between users on an online forum because of a common issue that I see as a moderator: misery loves company.

Even before I got really sick and found my way into chronic pain, I noticed that people who are hurting like to confide in others who are also hurting so they don’t feel alone. They find comfort in confiding in someone who can understand their own struggles. Whether that’s chronic pain, depression, anxiety, etc, people with burdens tend to seek others with burdens.

That alone is fine. For example, the friend I’m traveling with has Fibro. She totally understood when I had to go back to the hotel to get my jacket because of my strange inability to regulate my body temperature. She gets this weird, inexplicable obstacle that I deal with because we have similar struggles.

What’s not fine is when someone in our chronic community finds peace or makes progress and others will try to bring them back down to their level of anguish. Like right now, for example, I’m currently mediating between someone posting progress and another reporting them for “spam”. User A found some helpful tricks for their own troubles and User B is essentially shitting all over their small successes, posting incendiary comments trying to get me to remove their content simply because someone else’s good fortune bothers them.

I’ve been meaning to write about this for a while because as a moderator of an online community, I’m the one having to deal with fights and disagreements and such. I see a lot of this desperately negative behavior. It does shed light on how deeply some people do suffer I suppose, if it’s so bad that it drives people to shoot down others. But it doesn’t make it okay. And there are a lot of people with chronic pain and conditions who are NOT negative and who want to support each other. So this isn’t directed at everyone, but there are a select few in our community who can’t stand the sight of someone else succeeding and would rather us all just suffer and be miserable together forever.

We all have to strive to build each other up because no one else truly understands what we go through. If we shoot down the only people who share our struggles, we’ll be left alone and angry.

People in the Fibro community specifically have certain taboo topics and triggers. Like essential oils. Who cares if someone likes essential oils? They don’t work for me and I sure as hell DO think it’s aggravating when someone without chronic pain suggests I use them. It feels belittling and condescending when people offer suggestions, yes. I have thought of everything, so of course it’s hard to accept advice from people who don’t know any better. They’re just trying to help though. So just last week someone with Fibro was posting online about what essential oils others use. It was an all out war. I’ve never seen a group of people collectively tear each other down so much. And all because one person likes the way lavender scented oil relaxes them before bed.

I guess my point is, if we don’t support each other, nobody else will. We have to stick up for each other and accept that we may all be in different stages of coping. We all experience different environments and respond differently to treatment. Love each other and accept each others’ flaws as we stumble through life with chronic illness.

That is all ❤️

-Elle