Are people with Fibromyalgia stress cases?

(From my original Blogspot )- As a side note, I was diagnosed with Fibro five years after this post. I keep it under control for the most part, and I am, indeed, one of those stressed out people although I try not to be.

From all of those I have met with Fibromyalgia, I have come to a very preliminary conclusion that there are no "Type B" happy-go-lucky people who are cursed with this condition. Those in my acquaintance who have Fibromyalgia are some of the more stressed out individuals I have met. Is it the "chicken or the egg," so to speak, in regards to stress and pathology? In other words, do they develop the pathology as a response to their stressful lives, or do they feel stress because of their disease? I think it is the former. I am not qualified to make any kind of conclusion here, but I am only sharing my limited observations.

In church, I work in the nursery, and was recently partnered with a very interesting woman. Before I knew her personally, I had observed her from afar. She seemed energetic and very "smiley." But in working with her in the same room with twelve toddlers for one hour, I was able to see that she responded to life in a way that surprised me. Her "smiley" image was not what it appeared. She was extraordinarily stressed out, and rather than responding genuinely with the children, everything was a stress response masked as caring. The next time I saw her, she told me she had asked to be removed from her position in the nursery because of her intense pain with her Fibromyalgia. I wasn't surprised at all.

This experience just caused me to pause and reflect: what is this mysterious disease? It has affected many friends and acquaintances of mine, and I believe I even had a close brush with it myself (for another post....another day). It remains a mystery, but I have my (uneducated) suspicions.