'M.E. myself and I' by Anna

I cannot sustain the level of anger and outrage I feel about the way people with M.E. are treated and viewed.

I cannot stay at that level of disgust and fury.

I cannot even maintain the level of immense sadness that understandably comes hand in hand with this diagnosis and the gross injustice that comes with it.

I admire anyone, particularly M.E. sufferers (I refer to them as sufferers as we are indeed suffering), who can and do dedicate huge swathes of time and energy to advocating for this cause.

I sign in to social media and even with the carefully curated space I have created, with muted words and topics, I can be bombarded with the injustices and the suffering that we face.

It all eats at me. And the symptoms are already doing that. This illness…it affects everything.

So I aim to seek solace and peace wherever I can find it; I have to, to survive.

Things that have brought me happiness and contentment recently:

• Mouse learning to “spin” like her sisters
• The mere existence of my husband
• The relationships he has with my nephews
• Seeing a message flash up on my phone from from parents or sister
• Photos of Grandma on her little holiday
• Hot chocolate in bed, with clean bedding, and clean pyjamas
• The fact that our apple trees are growing more than the one single apple they produced last year
• Homegrown cucumber
• Hearing the soil absorbing much needed water
• Finding old photos of all of our guinea pigs
• Old messages from my husband found in old and forgotten about WhatsApp chats
• Getting to see my family to mark Grandma’s birthday
• Happy post
• Sunshine on the front step
• Fairy lights
• A new garden bed to rest in

Join me in my Instagram stories on Tuesdays (health-depending) to share your silver linings.