“You’d feel better if you got dressed”.
Do you have any idea what level of wellness one needs to get dressed? To physically remove items of clothing and replace them with other ones. To tolerate different fabrics against your skin. To have a tighter waistband or tighter sleeves.
Let’s break down just one aspect of getting dressed. Putting on a sock. Even doing this task in bed doesn’t make it a simple task for someone who feels acutely unwell every single day.
Let’s say the sock of choice has been selected for you and placed in your hand. You must now move your upper body into a more upright position. But wait! Now certain symptoms are flaring and you feel dizzy and faint.
You try to plough on. You need to move your leg at the knee and hip to bring your feet closer to your hands so you can put the sock on. (You didn’t think someone could talk about a seemingly simple task in such detail did you?)
Now for your arms and hands to do their bit. In my case, they used to play netball and rounders and even chuck a javelin around in athletics. These days? enter snort-laugh here
We haven’t even finished putting on one sock yet and we’ve seemingly drained our supply of ‘function’.
Chronic illness is different from recovering from a cold, where you might feel brighter in yourself for having a shower and putting on clean clothes. Everything comes at a price. Everything has to be weighed up.
Which is the lesser of two evils today? To stay unwashed and in pyjamas but able to reply to one email, and carry out the daily bodily functions that don’t even feature on other people’s radar? Or, to get dressed (without a shower #WetWipesForLife ) but be unable to do much else, other than eat and digest food?
[There are living aids that can help with such tasks but in my experience, all the aids in the world cannot make up for the far-reaching restrictions M.E. places on life.]
IMAGE: Anna’s upper body in strawberry print pyjamas and a cardigan that is much brighter than she thought it’d be when she ordered it online!
M.E. myself and I 