My M.E senstive side.

M.E has a lot of symptoms, anyone reading this blog probably has it, has a loved one with it or has an interest in it. These aren't just physical. Now let's get this straight right here, before I start the rest of this entry, I am in NO WAY saying that M.E is a mental disorder because clearly it isn't! But there are symptoms that could, I suppose be described at emotional. These include those like anxiety and depression.

Now I have both of these, I have also suffered from both before I was diagnosed with M.E. I like to think of it as the sensitive side of M.E, not in the emotionally understanding way but in the sensitive subject way. For this entry I have decided to open up about these and how they effect me and how I have learnt to live with and to some extent control them. M.E has a lot of stigma attached to it and so does mental illness, so for some people discussing these sensitive symptoms of M.E can be difficult and embarrassing. Myself included, to some extent, but anyway here goes!

I have had anxiety issues for as long as I can remember. As a child it seemed to be related to being away from home, specifically my parents, although I was still anxious if away from home with them. I used to hate it because I would really look forward to doing something, or going somewhere and then as the day got nearer I would get more and more anxious. It wasn't that I didn't want to go, because I did, just once I was there and my parents were gone I would start having panic attacks. One after another or I would never calm down from the first, until I was back with my parents. I would try to calm down but I really couldn't help it. Eventually I was taken to counselling and it seemed to help a lot. Not long before I finished primary school my parents dropped me at a family friends house, their mum was on a mission, to put up with me no matter what happened, I would stay the night there. And I did. It was a breakthrough. I still have anxious moments when I'm staying away from home, for example on holiday, but once I have done one night I am usually fine.

It would seem that since I got M.E the cause of my anxiety has decided to transfer onto something else. I now have emetophobia, a fear of vomiting. Clearly no one really enjoys it, but feeling sick or having had contact with someone that has a sickness bug makes me panic. Lucky for me, I don't have it too badly, I can look after Niamh when she's ill, with no fear. If someone throws up on TV I'm fine and so on and so forth, it's just when it's me at risk that there is a problem. It is obviously quite unfortunate that nausea is one of my M.E symptoms, sigh. I have anti-emetics on prescription which helps but doesn't always work. I sometimes actually panic myself into being sick which is beyond stupid but hey it's how I roll.

I think the main tips I can give to people dealing with anxiety are these.

• Know the cause - getting to the root of the problem is completely essential if you want to understand and perhaps being to control your anxiety. You may be able to work it out for yourself or you made need help, ask your family or get your GP to refer you to a qualified counsellor.
• Distraction - for me distraction is key. If I start to feel anxious, I leave the room I was in when I started to feel that way. My panic attacks tend to happen at night, so I will go into the living room and turn on the light. I will try watching TV, playing a game or reading a book, something that keeps my brain occupied and stops me panicking. When I have the energy and ability I find cleaning is a really good distraction.
• Deep breathing - I know they say to breathe into a paper bag but apparently now you shouldn't. But I find it really helpful to slow my breathing down. I hyperventilate when I panic so this helps to calm me down. Breath in for 5, hold for 5, out for 5.
• Talk to someone - tell them you feel anxious, get them to sit with you and help distract you and if you need them to, get them to talk you through some deep breathing. Chris does this for me, but my dad has always be the one that can talk me down every time.

That's about all I can think of. But anxiety is horrible, it is hard to explain and even harder to understand unless you have been there.

Depression is different. I was told I was depressed when I was 18, and was diagnosed at having M.E at 21, my GP has since informed me that she believes I may have had M.E since I was 16 and that the depression was, at that point a misdiagnosis. I think that a lot, if not all M.E patients suffer from depression. Lets be honest, most people would if they had this un-ending list of symptoms, day and night, year in, year out. It gets you down, plain and simple and sometimes it's hard to keep your head up and look for a way out. I know that my depression symptoms vary with my M.E symptoms. The iller I am, the more depressed I feel, simple. There are times that I have thought that it was all to much, that I couldn't handle it anymore and maybe it would be better for everyone if I wasn't around. I'm not going to lie. I had been independent, studying for a degree in a profession I loved, working in a bar and being extremely sociable. Then suddenly I was bed bound, not earning any money of my own, shattered and in pain continuously and relying on Chris and my dad to do everything for me. Who wouldn't get depressed and think that maybe they were in every ones way simply making things more difficult for them.  It was during this time that my dad introduced me to his own form of positive thinking and this really helped me.

During an earlier episode of his life he had undergone CBT therapy. Now I am not saying that CBT is a cure for M.E but with my dad's version he drummed into me certainly helped my depression symptoms. I have learnt, from him, to think a little bit differently about things. I look for the positives in situations much more now, I used to focus purely on the negatives. Now I realise how important looking at these positive aspects of my life are in controlling my emotions and my depression. It still goes up and down with my illness, it still effects me to an extent most of the time. But now I focus on my big positive (clearly now it's Niamh) and it helps.  Another big thing that has helped with this is talking to people, explaining how I feel. Normally this is Chris or my parents, and usually they can point out something I've missed, or help with Niamh or offer support, which is a big weight of my shoulders. Having this support is essential in my opinion.

I hope that me explaining that I have these conditions and how they effect me has helped people to understand them better and to realise that there shouldn't be as much stigma attached to them as there is, in fact they are both quite common place in society. I also hope that some of the tips I have offered will help someone, somewhere, feel just a tiny bit better.

Some good news, and something that has gone a great way towards relieving my anxiety for the moment at least, is that I received my DLA assessment today. It was up for review and is remaining unchanged. The fight against a realistic welfare reform is still massively important, but this is one little worry of my plate for a short time, I can breath a little easier and fight a little harder.

Here are mine and Niamh's 366 photos for today:

Me, ready to go to a quiz with my parents, probably only staying for about half but so glad I'm well enough to go for a while.

And Niamh, the photo I sent to her uncle Karl for his birthday, she's in her (slightly too big) piglet hoddie:

Night folks, going to head to the quiz now.. I hope!