It's always there but you never see it.  There's nothing to show you, no way to make you see it.  Just another invisible illness.  It's always there, sometimes in mild insignificant ripples other times it sweeps you off your feet and pulls you under like a tsunami. Peaks and troughs.  It's all about the peaks and troughs.  It's always there.

Yet you feel lucky.  No matter how hard it is you function.  You have to.  You're existing not living but at least you're able.  You think of the others who are bed bound or wheelchair bound because it's such a personal affliction, so many different combinations of at least 60+ documented symptoms makes every case unique with a variance in severity.  Many of the cases are invisible.  You can't see it and you don't want  to.  I can't even pronounce myalgic encephalomyelitis.

The fatigue is relentless, whether you sleep for an hour or a day, it's there. There is no rejuvenation just varying degrees of tiredness. It's not a simple yawn, this is bone deep, a devouring carnivorous fatigue that utterly consumes your body and your mind. Your limbs are leaden and you have to physically think about moving them in order for them to actually move, you have to make yourself talk ...force yourself to concentrate.

Then there's the brain fog. Sometimes it's just a mist that blurs everything, thoughts merge and mingle, colliding in the middle.  You have to repeat to yourself over and over in your mind what it is you're about to say/do/think next or else it evaporates and your mind is absolutely blank.  Words disappear from your tongue at first and then from your mind as you're left with meanings yet no defining word, simple every day words.  You can feel their hard edges scraping at your consciousness yet you can't find them, the frustration is alarming.  You stop halfway through a sentence, utterly confused and lost as you have no idea what you were saying or what you were about to say.  You can see it's shadow, it's outline.  You know it's in your mind somewhere but you can't access it, you can't see the details.  It's like feeling something lodged to the roof of your mouth, you can feel it...nudge it with your tongue but you can't quite get to it.  It hasn't disappeared, it's merely hiding and that makes it all the worse because you know it's there.  You feel stupid.  You lose track of conversation, by the time you locate the word or sentence, the conversation has moved on and you're lost.  Was it seconds or minutes that you were stumbling around your mind for? Someone is waiting for an answer or opinion and you stare at them blankly as you have no idea what they asked. They think you're ignorant. 

Thoughts are racing and ricocheting round your mind bleeding into one senseless stream, that you can't separate, pause or decipher.  You turn on the tv, pick up a book, pick up a pen, it's no use you can't concentrate on anything, you've read the same sentence five times now and still have no idea what it said.  There's an underlying sense of frustration, bubbling inside.  Even the way you're sitting or laying isn't right.  You're so tired you feel as if your brain should be bleeding, yet you can't sleep.  It's late.  You've been clicking refresh on facebook for ages yet everyone's in bed. Your back aches, your legs ache, your arms ache. Sometimes you fall asleep straight away, it's bliss, until you wake again a few hours later still morbidly exhausted to the point of breaking yet the sleep doesn't return.  Other times the sleep is so light, it's hard to decide if you're actually asleep at all, or just so tired you're in stasis  in some in-between state and then the dreams start, they're exhausting.  It's like you've lived another day in another life and it's time to get up, again.
It's hard to move.  You can't make your limbs move.  Even your thoughts are weighted.  Drop me into the canal, I'd sink.  You're sinking into your own skin.  You can't explain this.  Motivation evacuated long ago.  You're stagnant. You lay in bed staring at the ceiling.  You've been sat on the sofa for hours, blank.

Your throat is hurting, again.  It's always hurting.  Your fuses are shortening, they've been cut yet are still live and sparking menacingly.  You're feeling volatile and unstable.  Exploding like fireworks.  You're too hot.  You're too cold.  Even your own skin wants tearing off. It itches.  It's sore. You're suddenly allergic to everything, sneezing until your brain shakes, your eyes are itching so badly you're looking for a spoon to gouge them out with.  If your nose runs any more you're going to smash it with your fist. Stop talking to me.  Turn down the music.  Turn down the television.  Why are you breathing so loud? For gods sake why is every little noise so irritating? you feel homicidal.  You want to smash things and scream at people. Every smell is making you nauseous.  Your head is banging with pain.  Turn the lights off, are you trying to blind me?  Thoughts are abstract and flashing.  You need a ciggie but two puffs make you feel poisoned and like you're about to die.  You'd drink but you're drunk after one.

It's like you have flu ... every month.  A general malaise.  A mish mash of not feeling quite right.  Colds last weeks on end.  Coughs last months.

Why are your lungs so empty?  You just can't seem to breath enough in.  You're hungry for air.

You make yourself go out yet sat on the bus and the nausea is overwhelming.  You're dizzy and disorientated.  It's so hot in here, why won't people open the damn windows? You're sweating and everyone stinks. The tinny sound of someones mp3 player is making you want to insert it up their rectum, wrapped in a cheese grater. Can't anyone else hear it??  Everything's blurry and it hurts to focus.

Today is a good day.  You're walking miles, all the shopping is done, you've paid the bills.  You're going here tomorrow.  You'll go there the next day.  Crikey, even your mind is relatively silent. Woo-hoo!!!!

Such a heavy price to pay for a few days, hell a week maybe, or normality.  Everything hurts.  Random flashing pains flare in your wrists.  Every muscle is bunched and knotted.  You're walking through syrup.  thoughts are slow and heavy, sticking like hurled stones to the sides of your mind.  You've been sat here for hours.  You sleep half the day away just to function.  The oven has been heating up for forty minutes, you'll put something in it soon, just another few minutes.  The pans and plates are so heavy, you've been staring in the cupboard and have no idea what you're looking for.  You forget to turn the hob off.  You didn't lock the door.  Shit you've burned the veg again. Peoples lips are moving but you can't hear what they're saying.  You're sinking.

But it's okay.  It's only Yuppie Flu.  You're bone idle and lazy.  There's nothing wrong with you.  Pull your socks up.  Stop being a hypochondriac.

I sense infliction in the air. Help me disappear

It's that time of year again  yet one has to ask when is it really not that time of year of late?  The days are 50 shades of grey swaying between damp, wet and wetter.  The air is heavier then a resolute sigh making one need to chew though it rather then breath through it so that if you breath in you might forget to breath out again.

Even the rain seems heavy, more akin to thumps then drops as they linger longer then is appropriate for a mere aquaintence upon your lashes as if allowing your sorrow to inflate then further.

It's cold.  Cold enough for heating on 24/7.  Cold enough to issue a short sharp slap when you open the window for air, desperate for air as you braille read your way through the grey, as it edits and erases the autobiography of your soul. Trying to clear it away with your finger, to finger paint something (anything) to prove you were here..  Just trying to breath.  Just trying to think and indeed to not think in equal measures.

There's infliction in her eyes.

It gets to half four in the afternoon and the grey disappears and gives way to black.  An all consuming blackness that swallows your thoughts.

& the drugs don't work they just make you worse.

I can't seem to see. I can't seem to breath.  I can't seem to be anymore.  & I can't stop the the thoughts that crawl  and slither out of the gloom. I can't seem to see what's wrong yet the strange days are coming home again.

My head is screaming yet my lips are dry from their silence. The words, they went away.

& she's fading.

Everything feels acutely wrong.  There's a wrongness in the air.

So in the absence of alcohol, and in leau of an increase in medication it's time to break out the Multivits again and in particular Vitamin D.

For those unaware, there has been a suggestion that a deficiency in Vitamin D can contribute significantly to M.E, CFS, Fibromyalgia, depression and a whole host of other health issues.  Don't get me wrong, I'm as sceptical as ever.  I did experiment with supplements in conjunction with my usual medication last year and I can't say I noticed an effect, however it can't hurt right?  We all need a little little light through the dark sometimes.  Maybe this year I'll try one of those nifty spray vitamin d supplements.

Help me find myself., inside myself.

Everything is so grey.  I need a raincoat.  I need a phone call.  I need a big hug.

The strange days are coming.

The sky is an all encompassing grey, thick and sludgy and hungry, devouring both light and colour until everything turns grey.

It's suffocating to the eye and mind alike. I find myself trying to overcompensate through colour, bright tights and shining nails to try and disguise the bruise coloured dress that adorns my thoughts.

Everything feels slower and heavier, even breathing appears slow and insignificant.

The summer is well and truly over yet rather then an exploded paint box of colour heralding the arrival of Autumn the gray has consumed the fire and passion and burning colours.

I can feel the slow tugging hand of yet another m.e slump trying to drag me beneath the undertow.
Time for action.

The Husband is an awful sceptic towards the benefits of MultiVits, then again he remains a sceptic to most things yet when plagued by one of the awful invisible illnesses with no cure and few star players in the arena of treatments, you'll find yourself looking towards working with your body to try and encourage It's own defences knowing that if you can't who the war at least you can win a few of the battles. So the current thinking in some corners of the science world is that a large proportion of the population are deficient in vitamin D especially many sufferers of CFS, depression and Fibromyalgia. To many people this could prove to be a rather significant finding in coping with what are, let's face it, absolute bastards of afflictions. So in the name of science I'll give it a go. Don't get me wrong I'm not expecting miracles but even a small improvement would seriously help. Afterall, what have I got to lose, really? And what better time to experiment then now as blimey, if there's one thing the grey has definately swallowed, It's the sun.

Not an Emo. Honest.

Please excuse my somewhat erratic posting, unfortunately I'm still somewhat at the mercy of an illness trough.  I'm one of the slaves of the invisible illness'.  I can walk, talk, cook and generally exist therefore I'm obviously fine. There's nothing to see here, there's no flowing of blood, no burst organs, no crutches nor bandages, neither cuts nor bruises and not a temperature or rash to be seen.  So obviously there's nothing wrong. 

It's all on the inside where you can't see and don't know where to look.  The M.E triggers the depression and the depression triggers the anxiety.  Circles and circles and circles again.  And I'm trapped.  Inside myself.  In this body and this head. They're hungry carnivorous villains that extinguish and devour the very core of who you are.  There's a reason you don't 'know' me, I don't know me anymore.  Maybe there is no 'me' to know.  Or maybe she's in there, somewhere, silent all these years.

& she's lonely.

The 'me' in M.E

I'm exhausted.  Bone tired.  Soul tired.  It's not just the lack of sleep (The Toddler is teething Molars, last night I had 90 minutes of broken sleep) nor the bouts of Insomnia in between.  I can always tell when a trough is approaching, my throat will get sore, I'll get an increase in headaches, my short fuse shortens further and my mental health tips towards the unstable side of the scales (more so then usual that is) then comes the fatigue or 'chronic fatigue' as it's called.  I could sleep for a week and still be tired.  I need sleep yet even if i get it there is no sense of refreshment or rejuvenation gained from it just an insatiable need for more.  The fatigue creates a thick fog in my mind, my thoughts slow down and slur, words escape me, my short term memory cripples itself, all motivation evades me.  The exhaustion is like a hoard of vibrating ants fizzing through my veins making my limbs feel ineffective and leaden and 'buzzy'.  They ache, it's no stabbing pain or sting it's a heavy dull ache.  It's an effort to raise my arms.  My thoughts feel numb.  Everything feels like an excruciating effort, even talking.  I lose all interest in anything and everything. I get enveloped by episodes of mania, buy things I may very well need but can't really spare the pennies for then eviscerate myself with guilt.  Then the land slides, the scales adjust again and the depression drags me spiralling into it's centre and I'm too exhausted to care so instead I just close my eyes and wait for the ride to be over.