So, here it is. This blog has been years in the making. I have hesitated many times over how to go about it. Few first hand accounts of anyone suffering from ME exist and I felt that my experience of the disease offers a unique overview of what life is like for the many thousands of people like me. I also wanted to create a narrative other sufferers can follow and identify with, laugh at, and maybe even draw some comfort from. This blog is for anyone who wants to know what it is like to have ME. I am not a scientist. I am a relatively intelligent 25 year old woman who has achieved much more than any doctor told me I could ever manage, all within the constraints of a disease which has at times left me unable to, embarrassingly for any teenage girl, even go to the toilet on my own. For this reason I feel I have stories to tell and lessons to share. I will try to be as honest as possible - whence why I am choosing to remain anonymous and have given all the people in my life pseudonyms - because I want to be able to offer the real truth of the disease without offending or embarrassing the people in my life.
I always worried that a blog about an illness that makes you tired a lot of the time would largely be boring. Who wants to read how sleepy I am? What do I do on days when it hurts too much to type? It's taken me time to realise that in order to tell my story and tell people what life is really like for me then I just have to be honest. Sometimes I may just have to post "too ill to write". Because that is my reality. It doesnt always make for compelling reading (although I promise to strive to make it so), but it does provide the truth of my life and the last decade of how I have managed this beast.
Welcome, and enjoy.
I have compiled a
Glossary of terms I might use from time to time in the Blog. As well as a rogue's gallery of recurring characters.
I also have a
Links section of links providing both more information about the illness and also sites fellow ME'rs will find useful that I have mentioned in various postings.
Thank you for reading,
Girlunderduvet
