I have had this horrible condition (ME/CFS) for 2-3 years but looking back symptoms started way before.
At the beginning I started taking more and more days off work, before it getting so bad , I had to get signed off for around four months.
During this time I was predominately bed/house bound, unable to work, socialise and at the worst of it unable to get to the bathroom without the help of my parter. Continue reading
An estimated 250,000 people have CFS/ME in the UK, 1,000,000 in the USA and 17,000,000 worldwide.
But what do these 17 million people look like? Well a group of us who are on Toby Morrison’s online program thought it would be great to raise awareness to create a video & a collage of a load of our faces.
Many of us with these illnesses and many other chronic conditions find comfort and release in being creative for me its origami and finger painting.
I find a sense of peace comes from doing origami and finger painting is well really dam fun that type of primal child type fun!
Others who are more talented create pieces about their illness in the forms of pictures, abstracts and even toy making like below.
Averyl Ritchie is a wonderful artists I met in a CFS/ME group.
Her Corrupted Collection goes through the different stages of how she has experienced CFS/ME and it is a very beautiful depiction of what I think many of us have gone through.
This is how Averyl describes losing her cognitive skills – which is probably the worst part of CFS. Her brain is foggy, can’t think clearly or retain information. You forget words and conversations moments after they are spoken and drop everything you touch. This is invisible to others, and they can only see YOU, and not what’s happening inside. This is dedicated to a friend who experienced similar problems.
As part of CFS/ME Awareness week a group of us from the CFS Health Centres came together and thought of all the words we associated with having this condition that effects approximately 17 million people world wide, one of the members so eliquently created 5 pieces of word art to illustrate the different aspects of CFS from our point of views.
Symptoms
In previous posts I have talked about various symptoms of CFS/ME but this illustrates just how many there are, but also some of the consequences of these symptoms, like the loss of relationships with friends and family, jobs and even ones sense of self.
Along with feelings of hopelessness, the fear of how long you are going to feel like this and if it is ever going to get any better.
Averyl Ritchie is a wonderful artists I met in a CFS/ME group.
Her Corrupted Collection goes through the different stages of how she has experienced CFS/ME and it is a very beautiful depiction of what I think many of us have gone through.
This is the first painting the artist painted to express her pain. This dancer is grieving. She has lost her identity. She no longer can live her passion of dancing, and sits alone, sad and rejected.
Gluten Free Adventures & M.E 