OK, if you haven’t already guessed, I’m an optimist.  And yes, our type can get on peoples nerves when we’re too upbeat.  Not to say that optimists don’t have their down times.  I’ve had many.  Some of those darkest times for me were when I was bedridden with ME/CFS.  A disease as cruel as ME/CFS plays games with your mind, your psyche and your emotions.  The worst of it for me was that I became someone whom I didn’t recognize.  It began to erode my sense of self and my self esteem as well as my physical health.
 
What I took away from that dark place was the knowledge that this sick ME/CFS person was not the full definition of who I was and who I intended to be again.  It became a tool – a negative model of what I rejected.  I used it as a springboard from which to move upward again.  It renewed my commitment to regain my health – one small step at a time.  And each step was a little further away from those lowest points.
 
Did I do this after my first serious depression?  Of course not!  Type A personalities are quite certain of their methods and need to be clubbed a bit before they admit to being wrong.  But after a few low episodes, the optimist blessedly took control and I finally began the slow yet steady ascent back to health.
 
How to you handle lows?  Can you call on your optimist to move you upward again?  Please COMMENT on this blog or Send in your thoughts and I’ll post them with your permission.  You can use the Contact Form or send an email to Martha at DefeatCFS dot net.  And Guest Blogs are most welcome!

Look for a weekly posting on Tuesdays.  And consider being part of the conversation.

Be Well Again,
Martha

People use the word trust a lot.  I’m not sure if they really understand its meaning.  I recently had some sparks fly between me and someone I was working with on a project who is also a good friend.  We were both surprised by the sudden eruption but I told her it was OK because I trusted her.  I know her good intentions and the stress she’s feeling because her name is on the project.  And it reminded me of my struggle with ME/CFS when I was riding the daily roller coaster despite my efforts to follow the protocol.
 
On days when I was on schedule and feeling like I was managing my energy, getting rest and doing ‘the right things’, it was easier.  On days when I felt lousy and nothing seemed to be going according to plan, it was horrible.  Those bad days could do me in if I allowed myself to stay in that frustrated, down place.  I finally came to understand that I had to trust the process of recovery.  It’s easy to trust the process when you’re having a ‘good’ day.  The real test of trust comes when you’re having an ‘awful’ day.
 
So, on those awful days, I had to steer my frustration and depression back into trusting the process.  Of course, you have to have a process to place your trust in.  My process was my protocol with the daily record as the anchor.  It served not only as the grounded center of my work to solve my version of ME/CFS but it was an anchor for my sanity.
 
We all know too well how much fodder ME/CFS serves up for self bashing and depression and just ‘giving up’.  The process was my way of turning that negative energy into positive action to get well.  I placed my trust in that process even on the ‘bad’ days.  Do you have a process you can trust?  Please COMMENT on this blog or Send in your thoughts and I’ll post them with your permission.  You can use the Contact Form or send an email to Martha at DefeatCFS dot net.  And Guest Blogs are most welcome!

Look for a weekly posting on Tuesdays.  And consider being part of the conversation.
Be Well Again,
Martha

Several summers ago, I spent a weekend with my niece and her young family at the lake.  My grandniece was three and was so much like my daughter was at that age – the bright smile and giggly laugh.  The difference is that I could play with my grandniece, dance with her and even pick her up.  When my daughter was a baby, I was in the depths of ME/CFS and couldn’t hold a glass of water let alone a fifteen pound baby.  I missed my daughters’ time as a baby and toddler.  Even when she was three, I was still unable to pick her up or do active play with her.
 
Did I miss out on an experience that I can never get back?  One could look at it that way.  And of course, I can’t get it back with my daughter.  But spending time with my grandniece was such a wonderful gift.  It was like recovering that lost experience.  And my daughter was there too.  She had just turned twenty-two.  It was a joy to see her holding her cousin on her hip and playing with her.
 
If I had tried to ‘do it all’ with my daughter, I know that I would still be struggling with ME/CFS.  It had such a profound hold on me that it took dedicated focus, to the exclusion of all else, to get well - even the joys of my daughters’ babyhood.  I did find ways to enjoy her and be her Mom but they needed to be energetically limited.  And I would do it the same again because now, and for the last eighteen years, I’ve been a full participant in my life, her life and the lives of all my loved ones.  So now I plan to see my grandniece as much as possible and revel in this new opportunity to recover something that was just postponed.
 
Are you balancing choices that might be missed opportunities?  Are you planning ways to recover them later?  Please COMMENT on this blog or Send in your thoughts and I’ll post them with your permission.  You can use the Contact Form or send an email to Martha at DefeatCFS dot net.  And Guest Blogs are most welcome!
 
Look for a weekly posting on Tuesdays.  And consider being part of the conversation.
Be Well Again,
Martha

It happens to me every year around the middle of March.  Although I don’t see the signs of change in myself yet, one of my window plants catches my notice.  There’s a new vibrancy in its color or maybe even a tiny sprout where a dead leaf has been dropped.  Something triggers my attentiveness and before I’ve cognitively made the connection, I’m trimming, repotting and fertilizing all my plants.
 
What my plants have all been responding to, and what I’m also caught up in, are the longer days with brighter light streaming in my windows.  And I think back to my ME/CFS days and remember how hard it was day after day, week after week and month after month to keep my spirits up.  To remember my resolve to keep to the protocol, to allow myself the space to heal, and most importantly to cut myself the mental slack I needed.  The only time I didn’t need to be intentional about being upbeat was when the light began to get noticeably brighter at this time of year.  There’s a reaction to the increasing daylight that we experience on a cellular level.  I’m sure there are reams of scientific studies that have investigated this response but I don’t need to read them.  My sense of renewal and optimism are palpable.  And during my ME/CFS struggle, it was natural to see this NOT as the marking of another year of this cruel illness, but as the beginning of the year when my progress would get me to the next health plateau – the next stage of recovery.
 
I’m hoping that you are able to harness this brighter light and natural source of anticipation to carry you successfully along your path back to wellness.  Please COMMENT or Send in your thoughts and I’ll post them with your permission.  You can use the Contact Form or send an email to Martha at DefeatCFS dot net.  And Guest Blogs are most welcome!

Look for a weekly posting on Tuesdays.  And consider being part of the conversation.

Be Well Again,
Martha

A few summers ago, I spent a weekend with my niece and her young family at the lake.  My grandniece was three and was so much like my daughter was at that age – the bright smile and giggly laugh.  The difference is that I could play with her, dance with her and even pick her up.  When my daughter was a baby, I was in the depths of ME/CFS and couldn’t hold a glass of water let alone a fifteen pound baby.  I missed my daughters’ time as a baby and toddler.  Even when she was three, I was still unable to pick her up or do active play with her.
 
Did I miss out on an experience that I can never get back?  One could look at it that way.  And of course, I can’t get it back with my daughter.  But spending time with my grandniece was such a wonderful gift.  It was like recovering that lost experience.  And my daughter was there too.  She had just turned twenty-two.  It was a joy to see her holding her cousin on her hip and playing with her.
 
If I had tried to ‘do it all’ with my daughter, I know that I would still be struggling with ME/CFS.  It had such a profound hold on me that it took dedicated focus, to the exclusion of all else, to get well - even the joys of my daughters’ babyhood.  I did find ways to enjoy her and be her Mom but they needed to be energetically limited.  And I would do it the same again because now, and for the last eighteen years, I’ve been a full participant in my life, her life and the lives of all my loved ones.  So now I plan to see my grandniece as much as possible and revel in this new opportunity to recover something that was just postponed.
 
Are you balancing choices that might be missed opportunities?  Are you planning ways to recover them later?  Please COMMENT on this blog or Send in your thoughts and I’ll post them with your permission.  You can use the Contact Form or send an email to Martha at DefeatCFS dot net.  And Guest Blogs are most welcome!
 
Look for a weekly posting on Tuesdays.  And consider being part of the conversation.

Be Well Again,
Martha

Early summer weather in New England can vary dramatically day to day.  This year is no exception.  The normal spring rains which enable the flowering of bulbs and perennials have been alternating with oppressive dry summer like heat waves.  Cold heavy rain for days followed by sun baked days approaching 95 degrees.  Last week the weather forecasters were a buzz about the storms moving up the eastern seaboard laden with needed water.  As the front got closer, things shifted to warnings about flooding and washouts.  And of course I began to think about the constant emotional peaks and valleys I experienced when I was struggling with ME/CFS.
 
As with all emotions that we actively fight to contain, they are held at bay by intentional shoring up with periods of overspills which always seem to be triggered unexpectedly.  The cruelty of ME/CFS only serves to amplify the intensity of these highs and lows.  My first year was full of frustration with the medical community that labeled me as a head case.  With few exceptions I was looked upon as ‘mentally weak’ and in need of therapy.  After a period of permitting that negativity to cling to me, I finally rejected it.  But I was still left with a pattern of extremes where sometimes the skies would dump a deluge of emotions and I would struggle to tread water.  After climbing out of that, I would experience a period of emotional drought when I could stay focused on the protocol and the slow but observable progress toward getting well again.
 
This focus helped me to eventually steer away from emotional lows and to avoid riding the drought and deluge roller coaster.  How do you shore yourself up?  Please COMMENT on this blog or Send in your thoughts and I’ll post them with your permission.  You can use the Contact Form or send an email to Martha at DefeatCFS dot net.  And Guest Blogs are most welcome!
 
Look for a weekly posting on Tuesdays.  And consider being part of the conversation.
Be Well Again,
 
Martha

While I was in the depths of my struggle with ME/CFS, I had the opportunity to be seen in a Boston clinic where I thought they were familiar with ME/CFS.  The first doctor I saw there, after my complete lab work up and physical exam, was truly unhelpful.  He told me that there was nothing physically wrong with me and that I should go home and “have hope”.  At that moment, he was the recipient of all the rage about having ME/CFS that was pent up inside me.  His eyebrows may still be singed.
 
When I finally started working with another doctor at that clinic, and treating myself like a case study of one, I began to see slow but real progress.  It was then that I opened up to a collaboration of hope paired with a wellness plan.  As I worked through my physical illness and worked with my daily patterns, I also began to work on my attitude.  Prior to ME/CFS, I was an optimist by nature.  But ME/CFS had tainted my outlook.  It was beyond frustrating to be struggling with a physical illness that almost no one understood or even acknowledged to be real.  So, I began an intentional effort to raise my spirits and have some hope for recovery.  As I look back now, this was only possible because I was beginning to see glimmers of physical progress and I had determined to devote my immediate future to being well again.
 
I understood that hope without a focused effort to be physically well is equally as ineffective as a wellness plan without hope.  For me, they needed to be paired.  How do you balance your physical recovery plan with your outlook?  Please COMMENT on this blog or Send in your thoughts and I’ll post them with your permission.  You can use the Contact Form or send an email to Martha at DefeatCFS dot net.  And Guest Blogs are most welcome!

Look for a posting on Tuesdays.  And consider being part of the conversation.

Be Well Again,
Martha

It happens to me every year around the beginning of April.  Although I don’t see the signs of change in myself yet, one of my window plants catches my notice.  There’s a new vibrancy in its color or maybe even a tiny sprout where a dead leaf had dropped.  Something triggers my attentiveness and before I’ve cognitively made the connection, I’m trimming, repotting and fertilizing all my plants.
 
What my plants have all been responding to, and what I’m also caught up in, are the longer days with brighter light streaming in my windows.  And I think back to my ME/CFS days and remember how hard it was day after day, week after week and month after month to keep my spirits up.  To remember my resolve to keep to the protocol, to allow myself the space to heal, and most importantly to cut myself the mental slack I needed.  The only time I didn’t need to be intentional about being upbeat was when the light began to get noticeably brighter at this time of year.  There’s a reaction to the increasing daylight that we experience on a cellular level.  I’m sure there are reams of scientific studies that have investigated this response but I don’t need to read them.  My sense of renewal and optimism are palpable.  And during my ME/CFS struggle, it was natural to see this NOT as the marking of another year of this cruel illness, but as the beginning of the year when my progress would get me to the next health plateau – the next stage of recovery.
 
I’m hoping that you are able to harness this brighter light and natural source of anticipation to carry you successfully along your path back to wellness.  Please COMMENT or Send in your thoughts and I’ll post them with your permission.  You can use the Contact Form or send an email to Martha at DefeatCFS dot net.  And Guest Blogs are most welcome!

Look for a weekly posting on Tuesdays.  And consider being part of the conversation.

Be Well Again,
Martha

It’s a cold rainy day in New England after several warm spring days.  For the middle of April one might expect something different.  But I’ve lived here my whole life and one can always count on the weather to change moment to moment.  So today, as I settled in for a less active indoor day, I started thinking about my struggle with ME/CFS and those rainy days.  One might think that like some people, rainy days would have seemed dreary and sad back then.  But the opposite was true.  Rainy days made me very happy.

Why?  When I was struggling with ME/CFS, sunny warm days made me miserable.  I wanted so much to be out and going about my life.  And lovely days were a tough reminder that I was too ill to participate in my own life – in anyone’s life.  Those days seemed twice as long as normal.  They dragged and dragged and dragged on some more.  Those days were depressing.

I must admit, somewhat ashamed, that cold rainy days made me feel like other people might have their days limited as mine were.  Not with the physical symptoms of ME/CFS but the limitations on mobility.  The restriction of activity and possibly some of the isolation.  I felt like other people were stuck in it with me.  A sort of warped sense of misery loves company.  And this made me happy.  OK, not one of my best moments.

As I began to understand that I needed to get off the ME/CFS roller coaster and focus on a real recovery plan, this weather influenced attitude began to change.  My daily approach to healing became a matter of choice as I was no longer a victim of ME/CFS but rather someone who was on an intentional recovery path.  Nowadays when I’m trapped indoors on cold rainy days, I like to make the best of it and imagine I have lots of company.  And a nap is nice too.  How do you relate to cold rainy days?  Please COMMENT on this blog or Send in your thoughts and I’ll post them with your permission.  You can use the Contact Form or send an email to Martha at DefeatCFS dot net.  And Guest Blogs are most welcome!
​
Look for a weekly posting on Tuesdays.  And consider being part of the conversation.
Be Well Again,
Martha