Why I blog?? (despite having little precious energy?)

Somewhere last year, in between my snoozes and feeble attempt to do data analysis and write-ups for my PhD thesis, I chanced upon Darren’s website at ProBlogger. It was like “WOW! What is this thing called “blogging”? You can earn from it?”

The last part was a kind of tipping point for me to bring my thoughts online. I thought, if I can put down what I scribble on pieces of paper online, and earn some pennies from it, why not? Moreover, this is a good way to archive my thoughts and information!

That was a tough time for me. I was trying to cope the tag of “possible diagnosis” of fibromyalgia.Seemed like I lost everything to this disease. On those days where my fibromyalgia and arthritis was kind enough to let me have some spare energy, I turned to the web. At first I was looking for hard facts, clinical information to help myself, upon realising the local doctors were not familiar with the condition. Most people (I mean doctors, and other health care professional), look upon it as another psychological problem, as psychosomatic problem.

There was not much information for the “evidence based medicine” (EBM) approach which I have been trained to use, and the “evidence” were sparse, most of it were expert opinions, and these opinions were frequently contradictory, and non-conclusive!

After a month or so of feeling very helpless and hopeless, I began to look for blogs of ordinary people, “normal” people like me who has fibromyalgia. I was looking for an affirmation that life could still go on. There is still life despite having fibromyalgia!

There were not that many “fibro-blogs” at that time, and most have infrequent postings (a testimony about their owner’s inconsistent energy??) and a few were commercialised, that it felt more like a commercial entity than a private blog. Perhaps that is the victim of success. However, it is those postings on these hard to come by fibro blogs that made an impact in me, giving me a glimpse of how they cope, and reassuring me that life goes on.

I began talking about the fibromyalgia in a blog which was meant for my PhD related stuff, and very soon, the blog reflected the reality: The fibromyalgia has overtaken my PhD trek as the centre of my life.

Somewhere end of last year, I renamed my blog as the River is wide... This is the how I hope to reach out to others and in a way, Pay it forward.

You can find out more specifically them here: My blogging GOALs