'M.E. myself and I' by Anna Redshaw

Blue Sunday 2025 – 18th May

TLDR: Long waffle post inviting you to join in on Blue Sunday again and letting you know I won’t be able to do as much as I usually can.

Let’s get planning!

After 12 years Blue Sunday can practically run itself, which is good news for me and very well timed as I will not have the capacity to do all that I usually do in the run up to May. I am due to have surgery in the coming months and so I will not be in a position to ask much of my body in the run up to May. But Blue Sunday must and will go on!

I’m just going to need a lot more help this year before The Big Day. It’s hard to relinquish control of Blue Sunday, but over the last few years I’ve been starting to. Blue Sunday is the focal point of my entire year. It’s one of very few things that’s still mine despite illhealth. It’s incredibly precious to me, in a multitude of ways.

This year I’d like to invite you to make it your own. Create your own infographics (there will still be the ‘official’ ones in this post), invitations, merchandise (with proceeds going to ME/CFS causes please), giveaways, concerts, quizzes, group video calls, social media templates for other people to use, bake sales…all the wonderful things that Blue Sunday has become. If there’s an M.E. charity you’d like to get involved, invite them. I list as many as I can on my website.

All I ask if that Blue Sunday remains a fundraiser that is solely for ME/CFS causes. Of course all causes are worthy. But Blue Sunday is ours, when so little else is.

I also ask that inclusivity, as far as is possible with an illness so devastating, remain the focal point. This illness leads to us being excluded from so much; my main aim has always been that Blue Sunday is something that includes as many people as possible in whatever way works for them, around the ever-present restrictions of their health.

And finally, please don’t pass Blue Sunday off as your own. I’m not asking for credit and recognition on every post and at every turn; just that you don’t declare the concept of this virtual Tea Party For M.E. and this day of fundraising, that a very poorly Anna has cultivated since 2013, as your own.