Living a Limp Along LIfe: M.E. Awareness Day 2012

After so many M.E. Awareness Days there seems nothing left to say, nothing to add…and yet when so little has really changed for people with M.E. it seems as if there’s everything left to say.

So…after living with M.E. for 40 years in November, where do I begin ?

What seems to have changed since 1972 when I first became unwell is that at that point my symptoms were seen as a curious virus that would pass and resolve itself given time. I wasn’t made to feel foolish or neurotic. I wasn’t blamed or made to feel guilty for being unwell and unable to return to school. My symptoms were not understood and my lack of energy, inability to concentrate and disastrous ‘A’ level results were seen as surprising.

As time went on, and my symptoms persisted and gradually changed I was seen as being someone who was imagining things: hypochondriac, anxious, making the most of an ‘opportunity’ to gain sympathy and attention. There was never any attempt to investigate any of the symptoms I presented and asked about. I was simply brushed aside and left to wonder what was the matter with me. I didn’t know what to do about any of it so I just kept trying to live a normal life: ducking and diving, covering my ‘inadequacies’ and ultimately my shame because after years of the insinuation that my apparent health problems were my own fault, I began to believe it.

Fast forward to eleven years ago when my relapse was so bad that I couldn’t get out of bed, couldn’t wash, see properly, hold a conversation, sleep or eat. I finally got a diagnosis…but no treatment except an anti-depressant: not because I was depressed my GP assured me, but because at a very low dose, the drug would help some of my symptoms.  There was no real understanding from my GP or work colleagues or friends. There was no real Internet support or groups apart from a few political groups which seemed cliquish and full of wrangling and unhappy one-upmanship. I felt very isolated but kind of expected that, in time, this huge relapse would resolve itself as the others had done: that at some point I would manage to return to a ‘limp along life’ where, by means of deception and guile I could fake wellness and achieve some of my goals. That has not happened. 

Since 2001 I have seen the internet change the whole landscape, in terms of peer-support, for PWME. The amount of sharing of knowledge, support and kindness is beyond anything I could have imagined in previous years. What has not really changed (at least for the better) is proper support and understanding from the medical profession or government. There is still no proper research into our condition where it is seen as a physical, neurological illness and there are still no official guidelines which encourage GPs and other ‘Specialists’ to see PWME as people who have integrity, knowledge of their condition and a desperate longing to be well. We are still prey to every charlatan, witch-doctor, chancer and egoist within and outside the allopathic medical profession.

The current economic and political climate makes everything more difficult for anyone who is unwell or disabled --- not just PWME --- and I see more and more people struggling to access appropriate levels of care. In the meantime, there is a huge push from government to find as many disabled and sick people fit for work as possible. The assessments by ATOS are a joke at best and a humiliating and cruel abuse at worst.

What those in government and medicine really do not seem to understand is that PWME are longing to be well, longing to return to a normal life, to work, bring up their children, go back to education, travel, create etc. etc. and that, in many, many cases they still do all those things whenever and however they can because they are so strong and brave and resilient.

However, with the lack of medical assistance and the pressure to return to work and keep up with people who are well, PWME are getting more ill and relapsing, living in debt and poverty…and not just financial poverty but a kind of poverty of the soul because of the lack of compassion and the constant need to fight their corner.

What would really help PWME ?

• Proper medical research and the use of appropriate drugs and therapy
• An understanding by healthy people that we long to DO things and EXPERIENCE a life beyond pacing and eking out a sparse existence and that, when we do have better days, we should not be made to feel guilty or hide our achievements for fear of someone pointing the finger and branding us as malingering and workshy.
• An opportunity (if we are able) to make some return to meaningful work but within very careful boundaries where the precarious nature of our health is acknowledged, understood and respected so that we can contribute to society, pay our own way, have self-respect and find some enjoyment: having to live a life where we have to constantly justify our existence, complete forms, attend assessments, fight political battles, raise funds, raise awareness becomes a job in itself and leaves little energy for more enjoyable, fulfilling pursuits.

I feel that this will probably be the last time I post anything for M.E. Awareness Day. After living with M.E. for 40 years and having written this post I have nothing left to say. I just live in the hope that before I am too old, some research might lead to a drug or therapy that will really help ‘us’ and I might still have the opportunity to achieve my goals and ambitions.

Spider and the Fly

Sometimes I feel as if I am living inside a web; a spider's web with me as the hunted and trapped fly.

This morning I had a phone call from the JobCentre to talk to me about my ESA appeal. The person I spoke to was pleasant, helpful, charming.  He was trying to do his best whilst employed within a system which isn't working and is not 'person-centred' but 'finance-centred'. It doesn't matter that he seemed to genuinely care about what I told him about my condition and my ability, or inability, to work: he was obliged to spout the mantra about how the old system was based around what you couldn't do and the new system is about what you can do: blah blah blah.

I can do quite a lot of things. Even the brain fog and cognitive difficulties associated with M.E. don't mean I'm stupid. The point is, as I keep on saying, is that whatever I can do, I cannot do it for very long and I have to have frequent rests: otherwise I come to a complete standstill and relapse; become bed bound. This way of being isn't conducive to finding or keeping most jobs.

During the conversation, the JobCentre employee went through all the documents I (or DIAL) had sent in support of my appeal. It turns out that DIAL have forgotten to said all the supporting evidence that I worked so hard to get together before Christmas. It's all still in DIAL's filing cabinet.  I was also told, again, that probably the most important document the DWP could receive would be the letter from my GP supporting the reasons for my appeal. There is no such letter. The only document from my GP is a hastily completed, scrappy questionnaire where he has deigned to write five word answers and for which he charged me over £40. So I am trapped between an unsupportive GP, a benefits advice support service which is telling me one thing and doing another and a government body which doesn't see me as a person but as a target figure.

Everybody seems to be having a say in how I am, what I should do, how I should act and what's best for me....except me....and I feel powerless to change it because everybody else is in charge. Ultimately, of course, I am in charge of myself but my health, the 'bastard illness', always has the upper hand and yanks on the lines of sticky thread in the web, preventing me from actioning the feelings of frustration, anger, 'I'll show you' and making me feel miserable as well as ill.

What would it take for someone to listen to what I am saying ? This has been my experience almost my whole adult life. First it took nearly 30 years for someone to listen and believe I was physically ill instead of depressed or anxious or lazy. Now I have a doctor who believes I am ill (even though he will not agree with me on the exact diagnosis) but I have another group who believes I am still well enough to work at least 16 hours a week.

I know that this whole situation is bringing all sorts of old feelings to the surface. I don't know what to do with them. I have tried everything I know, over the past 40 years, to resolve these difficulties with my health and to be 'normal'. At this age, I know that the way I feel physically is just the way I am. I am not able-bodied. 

I am very strong mentally and emotionally so I have to deal with physical weakness and try to make a life for myself but I also feel like I am being made to look a fool when I know I am not a fool. 

I feel like a fly in a very sticky web and I know there are many more people out there like me. If only we could really rise up and make our tormentors see sense.

Dory Previn

So sad to see that Dory Previn died yesterday. Her work and lyrics were/are such an integral part of my life and inner vocabulary. I'm not sure that she was ever really appreciated as much as she should have been as a performer and her lyrics, with their dark humour and cynicism, were too much for popular radio.  So pleased she finally seemed to find peace with her new partner who was with her from the 1980s until her death.

Now she's 'on her way home'.

Seems like watching your heroes die is part of growing older

Scary Monsters Super Creeps

In another time, long long ago this song meant everything to me: not just because I was a Bowie fan, not because I adored the freakish costumes and (at that time) state of the art video effects, but because the words meant so much at a time that was difficult and very uncertain.

I never thought that over 30 years on, they would seem so apt again.

Those of you who know me from Facebook will probably know by now that I was found 'fit for work' at my ESA assessment. I wont bore you with the details if you dont already know them but, essentially, this means that I must go and find work (for I am not entitled to any benefits from the State) or make an appeal against the decision in which case I shall be given £30 less per week than I am now until the Appeal panel make their decision. If I win I shall recieve ESA in return for jumping through various hoops that supposedly will enable me ot return to work. In any case the ESA will only last for 12 months and then that's it...no more money, no more support....I'm out of my own, on the scrapheap: a 56 (by then) year old, who has been out of work for 11 years, who has a chronic health condition (according to the GP) yet is fit to work (according to the 'medically trained' assessor at ATOS).

Those are the raw practical facts of the situation. They say nothing about the raw emotional facts of the situation.

After 38 years of living with M.E., CFS,,,call it what you like (I'm sick of the debating and arguments)...I am used to being
disbelieved,
humiliated,
spurned,
blamed,
unheard,
doubted,
ridiculed.

In the past, being a quiet  and sensitive soul (yes that's how I really am ) my reaction, in my youth, was to back-off, retreat, roll over and give in. As I got older and bolder my reaction changed to

'F*** You. Watch this !'  

However, the latter attitude requires energy...emotional and physical and that it something I lacked and lack still.

In all honesty, the last few years before I had to end work were steeped in the latter response: I was so determined to do what I wanted and needed to do (within work/career) after so many years of being held back by ill health that I moved heaven and earth .........and all the expense of my health.

I've learnt now that nothing is worth doing at the expense of my health and that my health is fragile and easily damaged by anything too demanding. So where does that leave me now ? How to respond to this latest insult, scourge of scorn and ridicule (for that's how it feels) ?

I am at a loss.

There is a huge part of me that really really wants to turn round and say

'Right, if you think I'm fit to work then I'll go back to f***ing work and work as hard as I can just to spite you. I'll go back and do all the stuff I've been wanting to do for the past 11 years whilst you have been looking down you nose at me, playing games with my health, happier to bung me my Incapacit Benefit than really try to find out what it wrong with me and help me recover'

'I'll stick two fingers up to you now that your lack of real interest in me doesn't suit you anymore: now that you want to turn the tables and blame me for being ill, and brand me a scrounger and malingerer and either throw me out with nothing or make me join a 'Work Group' so I can make cup cakes and castles out of shoe boxes' 

The other part of me knows this wont work; that I need to stay calm and see what happens.

In the meantime I feel betrayed, exhausted, sacrficed, bewildered, very angry and inept because I am facing a faceless enemy who hides behind spin, statistics, lies and self-interest.  As ever, it seems, I'm up against all the things I hate the most: bullying, deceipt, oneupmanship, competition whilst pasty-faced corrupt, ego-centris politcians and financiers snigger behind in their ivory towers.

Scary monsters, super creeps

M. E . Awareness

 

To be honest, after so long and after so many posts written for M.E. Awareness Day I've run out of things to say. Life goes on and every now and then there seems to be another glimpse of hope on the horizon.

However, compared to many glimpses of the past, these little rays of hope do look promising but they need all the help they can get in terms of support and finance so I would direct you to The Whittemore Peterson Institute. This private research facility in Reno Nevada has  made real breakthroughs recently and you can make a donation by going here.

Alternatively, and if you would like to get something for your money as well as helping to fund research you can go here where you will find a range of greeting cards, prints etc which have been designed by people with M.E.  All the profits go to XMRV research at the WPI. The card project was created by LeeLee Ingram who is an artist and performer living with M.E.

Like Clockwork - a response

Thought it easier to respond to all those comments to my last post by writing another.

Firstly, thank you so much for all the support, advice and suggestions.

Looking back at the post yesterday I felt quite embarassed at writing such a whingey, depressing diatribe. I try to be upbeat and positive and maintain a kind of 'just get on with it' attitude. However, having mentioned this on Facebook I was reminded that actually it's OK to admit to being down once in a while and, actually, if the boot was on the other foot i.e if I was responding to such a post I'd say the same as all of you.  I'm just not good at giving myself permission to be negative --- in public anyway.

It was actually an outpouring based upon several days of feeling slightly unwell, with a bad back and everything, everything being so difficult and complicated --- not actually because of my health problems but more down to the fact of other aspects of my life here. Having a disabled child and a very old and disabled dog makes things much more difficult for anyone: even trying to find the right car. I bought a 'new' car just before Xmas and it has been distastrous: we can't get my son's mobility scooter in it as well as all the shopping; the boot is too high for the dog to jump into so I have to lift him in and out (hence the bad back), the seat is all wrong for me and the person who owned it before me saturated everything in Febreeze and despite all my attempts I cannot iradicate the chemical smell. We wanted to book a holiday but everywhere was wrong because of my particular needs or my son's ...too smelly, too hilly, no proper disabled access etc etc etc. It just seemed like nothing was easy earlier in the week.

I know too that my partner working from home will be O.K. We've been together a longgggggg time and adapated to no end of different situations. I felt even better once I'd made a start (if only a small one) on redecorating what will become the office. I just needed to take control, make plans.

I DO make plans, 'to do' lists and keep to them mainly but in the last post I was thinking of the sort of 'blue sky' lists I used to make...the big dreams...the progression of a career, creating new work, paintings, films, moving etc. That's what I miss. Everything now is so diluted and small and minor. Whenever I have tried to go for big things (which take a lot of time and effort) I have been thwarted and left undone. For years I have had to settle for everything being small and piecemeal, fractured instead of the constant moving forward and earlier this week it just really got to me.

I need to pull in my horns and accept my own pace and carve out my own space

Thank you all again for all the support. It's great to have such a wonderful sounding board

Clockworkkkkkkkkkkkkk.........................................................

It's a big year Chez Cusp...lots of anniversaries and big birthdays.  I don't really like big occasions...too much pressure and I believe the stress of that is leading to all the dreams I've been having: bizarre, twisted dreams. Dreams about the past, the future, what I've lost, what might happen in the future. Last week, decent sleep was especially precious as each night I closed my eyes and off I went into another technicolour drama-roller-coaster of old memories all mixed up....like some demon had decided to remind me of all the things I used to do but put it through a blender first.

I feel like there's a lot of reassessing going on under the surface. Landmarks have been reached and its time to move forward but I'm unsure about how or what. 

In the normal scheme of things I'd have drawn up a plan with bullet points and worked through it. I was always good at that:..'this is the plan' was a joke in our house because that was how I worked...dreams, goals  and plans. But nothing is normal Chez Cusp....especially inside Cusp where I'm never sure how I'll feel physically or, at the moment, emotionally. Its not that I'm sad. I just feel sort of pressured that time is marching on, I've been living with serious M.E. for ten years and not much has changed for me ...and I want it to.

Recently, a very good blogging chum was writing about loss of independence due to ill health and how that can affect self-confidence, relationships, self-image. J is a real fighter....gets knocked down and gets back up. I get knocked down, lie there stewing ad thinking and then get up again. I know that being ill enough to keep me at home for 10 years has knocked my confidence. I get little glimpses of the old me...the confident in-charge me, the gung-ho me...and instead of helping me to think 'oh that part's still there' it undermines me because I know its not sustainable: I can only keep it up for so long.

The threat of being assessed for my ability to return to work terrifies me. I just don't know how I would manage going to work. I know that most days I can put on the face...especially in interview/meetings type scenarios and probably come across as confident, personable and capable (unless its a day where I cant find the words and barely remember my own name) but I have lost so much. The skills I had are still there but the whole art scene and funding scene has changed. The people I networked with have moved on. The contacts are lost...and most of all I can only do all that for a short period of time. I'm like a old clockwork toy that runs out of 'wind up not long after you've set me down on the floor

At home things are in flux. We have had the threat of my partner's job ending for months. Now it seems like it might be OK except there'll be more working at home (because office space is scarce so they'll all be gievn a laptop and work at home). To be honest that feels like another piece of my independence lost: for all the company and help I get I need a few days alone in the house, to move about at my own pace ( i.e slowly, amblingly) to not have to worry about other people because, to be honest, even after all this time, I still don't really go at MY pace when other people are at home with me: I kind of try to keep up with the flow and then cover up my 'failings'. It's because I still feel embarassed, ashamed of the fact that I'm not the person I was and because I hate the feeling of lost independence; I need someone else to do a pick up of kids or drive to the supermarket but if I can do it myself (even if its too much) I will because I dont want to give in, be dependent, be frail. 

Some of this stuff comes from habit: I spent so long covering up my illness at work for so many years that it's kind of second nature. Some of it is much much deeper stuff from childhood..from being seen as weak and vulnerable and being determined that I wouldn't be perceived like that anymore. I remember an incident in A&E a few years back when I'd had a nasty fall and ripped out three fingernails. The nurse took one look at me and said 'We must get you  in a wheelchair. You look so pale and we dont want you falling over in here.'  She was saying it because she was concerned, caring.....and I was livid, furious at being 'put' in a wheelchair. I felt like it was a punishment for being so stupid as to fall over in the first place ....so everyone could look at me and point the finger in the waiting room 'Look at that goon..can't even buy 5 things in Tesco without falling over'

So many losses and such frustration. So much I want to do and so hard to do them. So sick of still being in thrall to that dark shadow and sick of being incapable of drawing up a plan and working through it: 'This is the plan'......what's the point ?