During the past decade I’ve tried dozens of traditional and alternative treatments for rheumatoid arthritis and fibromyalgia. I’ve appreciated pain complexity and adjusted remedies to fit, backed off harsh medications or added steroids, adjusted my diet almost daily along with activity levels (completing a project may take 5X as long as it used to). Consistency vanished along with my life outside disease management until I joined an online support group, but not JUST any online support group. This group is fiercely devoted to humor (you may get ousted for complaining), support served on the side (in heaping portions, if needed). Not long after joining this group, my focus shifted, and I began laughing again. Sometimes I was in horrid pain and unable to walk, but I felt better after connecting and laughing. Sometimes I provided the laughs, and it felt good, like I contributed something positive! I’d almost forgotten that feeling.

Truly understanding the effects of disability and pain on a person’s self-worth when you are healthy is beyond difficult even if temporarily stricken with an illness because you get better. That’s not a judgement (YAY for healing), but reality as much as I cannot possibly understand what it is like to live in (Insert Least Liked Country) for the rest of my life. I can learn as much as possible about (Insert Least Liked Country), even visit, but without being forced to live there when I don’t want to, it is a topical comprehension. Experience is where empathy grows, and from shared experience friendships are born.

My friends are online mostly, but please don’t pity me or assume I’m lonely/depressed. I have people I can be 100% real with, if not in the group, then on messenger. Around-the-clock support is there when steroids keep me up all night because: 1. I have friends across the world. and 2. I’m never the only one on steroids at any given time.

We have regional meetups, where I get to hug a few of these Warriors in person vs. our usual cyber-hug routine and we laugh for hours, and end with promises to meet again. Whether online, or in the flesh, the founding member in my neck of the woods teases mercilessly, tells great stories, and is a pretty good sport when humor boomerangs on him. Some friends have travelled for hours to meet each other, in my city this summer and in Elkhart, Indiana yesterday. These are not only friends I laugh with, but also friends who pray for me and send me positive energy when I’m very sick or just walking with a limp. They are the friends who invite us for a big spaghetti dinner, and add special details like twinkle lights and grapes hanging from the ceiling and little gifts of jasper. And they are the ones at home watching us online, hopefully getting a little ambient flavor through the screen. 

I don’t socialize less because of this group, trust me. If anything, they help keep me fit for decent company.