What to do if you get diagnosed with Chronic Fatigue or Fibromyalgia

This is part of a response I gave to someone in the Chronic Fatigue Syndrome forum of HealingWell.com (A site I HIGHLY recommend, by the way!)
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I think a lot of your anxiety will be relieved if you do more to educate yourself. I spent (probably too much) time researching Fibromyalgia (a good bit of the reason for that was denial) but the more I read and learned, the more I could see that Fibro was what I had. It could not be denied. So acceptance has helped. I suspect CFS as well. So I plan to learn a lot more about it, too. Much of what you have - those knots - the tingling, the burning feelings, etc. are very common in Fibromyalgia.

If you knew all the weird things that are possible to happen ahead of time, I think it would really help you to take them with a grain of salt when they happen. In my case, I'm kind of like (to the symptoms) "Oh, why hello, I was expecting you to pop up at some time!" -- don't get me wrong, I'm not greeting the symptom happily, but why cause myself more stress and pain, when if I try to see it with a sense of humor, I feel better more quickly instead of making my condition worse.

The knots you have are the "trigger points"...there are about 18 in all. Some people have 11, some people have 18...I have 16 of them. I found that self massage helps a lot. Use circular movements. Look up YouTube videos about self massage for Fibromyalgia. There are also helpful tools sold on Amazon that can help you reach the knots on your back.

I finally decided I wouldn't get frustrated that there is no "cure" to completely get me back to the way I was before. I am this way now. I don't have to give in to it, but I do have to accept that I cannot do everything that I used to do before, or in the same way.

A moto-cross expert was being interviewed and asked how he was able to ride so fast between trees without hitting the trees. He said he looked for the spaces between the trees, never at the trees. That's what we should do, look for the openings...look for things we CAN do, don't focus on what we cannot.