sabrina merolla

Beijing, China. March 2014. My face reflected on the window of a skyscraper, in one of the unnumbered megalopolis of our world. Me and the city - this is how it all began. With an intoxication from polluted water and food, which led to MCS (Multiple Chemical Sensitivity) and  fibromyalgia.

Naples, Italy. Spring 2014. Restless legs syndrome is both, a symptom of fibromyalgia and an independent disease. It causes the urge to move the legs because of uncomfortable sensations as tingling, burning, itching, or painful cramping. These sensations worsen during the usually sleepless nights.

Loreto Crispi Hospital, Naples, Italy. Summer 2013. This is one of the unnumbered hospitals I visited in the last few years. Nonetheless, this was a very important one. Here I heard the word "fibromyalgia" for the first time, from a rheumatologist. It was just a vague hypothesis for some strange sensations I felt. But one year later, when I clearly showed all fibromyalgia's symptoms in Beijing and everybody kept on saying I was "depressed", it turned out to be the most helpful suggestion ever.

Beijing, China. February 2013. Before of clearly showing all fibromyalgia's symptoms, it is quite common to have many different kinds of "crisis". As for me, on Winter 2012, I started to feel unbearable pain in my back and neck. Then it was the turn for kidneys, unfamiliar allergies and so on. At first, I found relief in Chinese traditional medicine. In this picture the effects of moxibustion on my skin are quite visible. Despite their aesthetic impact, Chinese medicine treatments as massage, acupuncture and herbal detox, are never invasive and highly recommended to help soothing the body during the fibro flares.

Beijing, China. March 2014. "Fibro fog" really feels like having the brain in the haze. Generally, it is characterized by neurological overstimulation, forgetfulness, decreased alertness, confusion, inability to focus or stay focused. Basically it feels like the brain is there but, instead of going from point A to point B, it just flows round and round.

Naples, Italy. January 2016. Unnumbered are the injections I had during the last few years. Analgesics, anti-inflammatories, cortisone - I tried everything. But having my syndrome been caused by a deep intoxication, which made the neurologic system tilt out, all those drugs could give me only some immediate relief that, later on, I always paid for. Because they contributed to deepen my body's poisoning. Now I only have vitamin B shots, to strengthen the nerves consumed by chronic inflammation.

Naples, Italy, Summer 2014. It has been demonstrated there is no hereditariness in fibromyalgia. Nonetheless, in a number of cases, there seems to be a certain 'familiarity' with parental light infirmities. I have longly been staring at the lifeline in my palm, wandering about destiny, hereditariness, fate. But I have found no answer apart from something I was told once, while I was trying to explain the causes of my illness to an Instagram friend. He just interrupted my explanations and said: "It is as it is, Sabrina, and it is perfectly fine this way".

Naples, Italy. December 2014. The degree to which these kind of illnesses can stay invisible is astonishing. We may feel the fiercest pain without showing any clear outward sign. And I have to admit that, if doctors are not always young, while many autoimmune diseases have only been recognised by WHO during the last two or three decades, it is understandable why so many of them firstly believe we are all hysterics.

When a strong flare rises it is never a subtle sensation. It feels more like a punch in the face. Because pain migrates in different parts of the body and quickly becomes overwhelming, breathtaking. The first times I was scared and confused. Now I keep on asking to myself: "How long, this time?" “Will it be the last”?

Naples, Italy, October 2014. Friends always make a difference. People come and go though; friends come and go, too. I cannot pretend every  friend of mine showed empathy for my illness or interest for me as a "normal" person, beyond fibromyalgia. But dealing with someone who is going through a lot of pain is difficult. As I found many new friends, I lost someone on the way. But this road I never choose for myself, by the end, has become part of me, and denying any recognition to it is denying recognition to the person I am today.

Naples, Italy. Winter 2014. It may sound ludicrous, but the evening bath is an essential part of my life. It easily relaxes all muscles and nerves and, from the unbearable task it used to be at first, it has now become my daily little ritual.

Italy, May 2014. As I fly back to Italy, a beautiful sky and many hopes permeate everything. 

Naples, August 2013. Fibromyalgia changes us and nothing will ever stay the same. It is hard to accept it. It is confusing to see exactly the same person in the mirror, then discovering her body and  mind cannot follow her will anymore. Everything is tiring and painful and the more we try to push ourselves the more we cannot move. The more we do not want to admit how we have changed, the more we deny ourselves thousands of other possibilities.
I was under psycotherapy for years, only to learn how to accept the new me, how to get to know her again, without forcing her to do what she was not able to do anymore. What did I learn through therapy? Just to listen to my body, which was the only real thing that I could do to get to really now the new me. 

Villa Floria Clinic, Caserta, Italy. May 2013. Me and my mother at a laser therapy session. Life is a movie reflected on glass. But I am still lucky, I can walk and swim again, now. 

I have been a sinologist for years, before of becoming a full-time photographer. After eight years in China, which was becoming one of my two motherlands, moving definitively back to Italy was an extremely hard decision to take.

Naples, Italy. The year 1982, as seen on September 2015. On May 7, 2014, I was back to Italy. I urged to talk my own language with doctors, as I needed my family and friends. Autoimmune diseases are deeply challenging for families. It is complicated to show empathy to somebody who does not look sick and does not want to admit her/his disability. It is difficult to accept it for relatives, too, without hoping, someway, that there is just a psychological problem. Families are often left apart in the narration of this kind of stories. But the truth is that they are always there, for the good as for the bad.

Ischia Island, Italy. July 2014.
The dark night gave me black eyes, 
Yet, I use them to search for the light. 
                                                      Gu Cheng
黑夜给了我黑色的眼睛 
我却用它寻找光明。 
                                  顾城

Naples, Italy. May 2014. My innest wish at the time: not to have a chronic illness and to get better soon.

Naples, Italy. September 2014. Chronic fatigue is carachterized by persistent soreness and exhaustion. Muscles and bones feel extremely heavy and difficult to move. Every movement, even breathing, can become unbearably hard.

Ischia Island, Italy. July 2014. The way I feel... An old picture from one of my trips to Ischia Island. I go there for thermal therapy. The first days I am almost dead, as the gecko in the photograph, then the healing process begins. 

Naples, Italy. February 2015. Daily looking for some relief from my legs thrills and aches, daily routine when fibromyalgia flares up. 

Caserta, Italy. December 2013. Ups and downs can be unbearable. Fibromyalgia can be unpredictable and distressing. It feels so terribly meaningless to restart living again, then stop it again, then start it up again... Sometimes it just feels like looking at life through a fishbowl. I am inside, moving over and over in the water, where every sound, smell, or sensation is mitigated. But I know the real life is on the other side of the glass.

Naples, Italy. October 2014.
I must go down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide
Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied;
And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying,
And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea-gulls crying. (...)