It’s
been over a year and a half since my last posting. Back when I combed
the Internet for fellow sickies’ thoughts, I’d come across archeological
remains of blogs that the author seemed to have abandoned mid-thought,
and I’d always wonder what had happened. Did the writer get so sick and
dispirited that she faded away from everything? Or did she get wildly
healthy, and never want to revisit her sick days again? I’d imagine that
most people who heal from ME/CFS naturally drift away from the Internet
haunts that sick people use, and so voices of those successfully
recovering are vastly underrepresented. According to Blogger Stats, at
least a few people still wander into my blog every day, and I don’t want
to be a mystery. I’m the second type; over the past year and a half,
I’ve recovered a great deal of my health.
I
want to write an entry to counterbalance all the sad stories in the
small world of the ME/CFS Internet community, even if I can’t fully
explain how I’ve gotten better. An old friend came into my life, through
this blog in fact, who had been severely ill (Lyme and complications, ME)
since he was 12, and had slowly put himself back together over a few
years of uncompromising hard work. He showed me how much energy I had
been wasting, physically, emotionally, and spiritually, and how to begin
taking responsibility for it. Through example, love, and some
good-hearted yelling, he showed me a number of alternatives, and also
introduced some practices into my life (martial arts, exercise, sex,
communication, even some kinds of video games) that have proven
invaluable to getting into a life- and growth-oriented stream of
things.
 |
| A hike last winter in Vancouver, BC |
I
still have to be extremely careful with myself, and work hard every day
to not fall back into old patterns that lead to illness. Most of my
life is structured around recovery, and I suspect it always will be.
Still, I can exercise for an hour almost every day, I went to school
last semester and am preparing now for a job teaching English as a
second language, I take walks, climb trees, cook, see friends, play
Dance Dance Revolution, run errands, and other such miraculous things
that I thought would never be part of my life again. I weigh 25 more
pounds than I used to, and I’m off all the many medications I used to
take for insomnia, inflammation, depression, and anxiety.
If
this seems maddeningly vague, I understand; I haven’t really been able
to articulate the details of how I got better even to my closest friends
and family. I understand more than I can explain, and I don’t
understand it all. Nevertheless, it happened, and if nothing else it
proves that recovery is possible.
