Mighty Book Club

I think there are few writers who have tackled chronic illness with the finesse equal to Virginia Woolf’s “On Being Ill” essay, and our community is so much better for it 🤍

Somehow she manages to say so much in the few lines within this quote. Illness is indeed a part of every person’s human experience. Yet sadly very few able bodied souls seem capable of remembering their worst moments of having to soldier on whilst sick, and allowing this to inform their sense of empathy when it comes to those of us who have been soldiering on for years, if not decades.

Our battle with chronic illness, fatigue, and pain, acutely enhances our perceptions. You cannot be unchanged by long term illness. We alter the courses of our lives, we alter how we face the day, and inevitably many of us—willingly or not—alter our relationships. Many things simply become unsustainable, and these alterations irrecoverably change us.

And, whether it is topics of conversation that previously you would have considered taboo, or our falling standards of vanity, self consciousness too is inevitably eroded and reduced. Such that support group chats about strange bowel movements become not only common, but at times become quite detailed. And nobody minds, because we’re all stuck in the same metaphorical boat of having to self advocate, and self research.

Loss of vanity creeps in slowly. One of the first things I remember doing was growing my hair out so I could braid it and not have to style it anymore. Those of us with #MultipleChemicalSensitivity find that hair dyes and nail polishes become too irritating. I switched to natural versions, but as my health worsened, eventually I lost the will to engage in these little vanities altogether.

At some point your hygiene standards become less of a priority, and skipping baths or showers seems a prudent way of saving spoons. Wet wipes become good substitutes and in winter, you’re just about prepared to be sewn into your clothing for the season as they used to do in the Middle Ages. And with the worst of health things like makeup, regular haircuts, high heels, jewellery and such, become but a distant memory.

Reduced capacity to thrive brings out all sorts of confessions. Which to their credit, our partners most often find themselves unofficially ordained, and on the other side of the curtain. Regrets, memories, anger, and hurt. When you have nothing but time, and lack the energy to participate in life, it all comes tumbling out in the wash.

Most recently I found myself confessing to my husband that occasionally I can’t help but wonder if hubris is keeping me alive, and whether he might be better off without me. Not to say that I have any intention to laden my pockets, and wade into the River Virginia. My mind however does spend an awful amount of time dwelling next to it’s riverbanks. My mind’s eye fixed on the current, trying to decode what it all means, and where exactly I stand in the great equation called life.

Fully cognisant that there are millions of years behind our evolution, many more millennia yet to come, and in a cosmos made up of infinite planets and possibilities. Such that one day none of it will matter at all. All evidence of my existence will eventually disappear. And it is this knowledge that forces me back to the one truth that I have come to know; all that really matters is the here, and the now.

As Virginia Woolf so aptly concludes, “truths are blurted out which health conceals”.

#MyCondition #ChronicIllness #MightyBookClub #Spoonie #ChronicFatigue #MyalgicEncephalomyelitis #Fibromyalgia #ChronicPain #WritingThroughIt

So lately I have been struggling and to learning to live and find my ways of coping and living with all these new health changes/issues.
I really thought WOW even just the past 6 months alone it's been a lot .It no wonder rim overwhelmed & struggling.Id been thinking I was crazy ,my moods right now are so unpredictable & my best friend told me tonight Emma look what you've been through and how strong you really are you just don't believe it at times.
It really is OK to not feel OK, it's ok to take a min to realise I am strong ,I have been through he'll and back yet I'm still here. It's ok to think I can't take anymore but it's not ok to think your alone or you have to give up !
Were in it together ❤️

#MentalHealth #CheckInWithMe #Anxiety #Depression #Selfcare #PTSD #Positivity #wellness #AloneTogether #Bekind #COVID19 #longcovid #Tattoos #Crafting #SkinCancer #Cancer #ForTheLoveOfDogs #loveyourself #Healing #MightyBookClub #AbuseSurvivors #Endometriosis #Parenting
#GeneralParenting

Books are a beautiful thing — there’s just about something for everyone, no matter your taste, favorite genre, or desired topic. But there’s a not a book for EVERY intersection. So today, we’re curious what those unexplored themes are. What’s a book you’d love to read? Is there a specific author you’d love to write it?

📚 P.S. In the comments section, if you know of a book that tackles someone else’s wishlist, make a recommendation for them to check out!

#MightyMinute #CheckInWithMe #DistractMe #MightyBookClub #MightyPoets #MentalHealth

Mash up of Stevie Nicks and James Norbury references today, as I’m currently caught up in a medical storm of sorts. I went to the doctor yesterday for a pressure test to confirm I have chilblains, which he confirmed, but not before giving me a long mansplanation about how in his opinion I’m actually mentally ill. My husband and I both felt whiplashed by this conversation, considering I went in to get my feet examined which fell by the wayside at lightning speed to become a grilling about how I should accept that I have Illness Anxiety which is causing me to be fatigued—not my #MyalgicEncephalomyelitis

I’ve spoken with an ME charity who gave some advice, but they also said that though my doctor is medically obliged to abide by the World Health Organization’s categorisation of MECFS as a neurological disorder, this doesn’t stop some doctors from wrongfully categorising it as a mental illness.

It is frustrating having to spend what energy I do have on trying to self advocate for treatment, then having to spend my nights reading up about the DSM criteria for Somatic, Illness Anxiety, and Conversion Disorders. I asked the doctor how I could prove that I’m not mentally ill and his answer was “with difficulty because (people like me) have a hard time accepting that they aren’t physically ill.”

The greatest insult in this statement is that he dismissed all my private lab tests as being pseudoscience, but when I challenged him to produce scientific evidence to confirm his Illness Anxiety diagnosis, he basically used a Fallacy Argument to prop up his hot take.

In my ordinary life, I would consider this farce, but as doctors are gatekeepers—I am being denied access to medical care based on someone’s whim. One which seems to have made it’s way into my medical history so that wherever I go within the NHS, this black cloud will inevitably follow.

Like us #ChronicIllness sufferers don’t have enough to deal with already, but as Stevie sang “Never have I been a blue calm sea, I have always been a storm.”

#MyCondition #ChronicFatigue #MightyTogether #MightyMusic #MightyBookClub

I’m reading Joan Didion’s ‘The Year of Magical Thinking’. I have always found comfort, and a home in books. Where some parents elect to use the television as a nanny; mine was reading books. I’m grateful for the understanding and wisdom I learned through the accumulation of stories from my fellow outcasts. This knowledge however, in time became a bridge between myself and my family. For at some point I journeyed too far beyond their comfort zones, their norms, and their unhealthy coping mechanisms.

The bridge will always be there for them, but I don’t think they’ll ever be in a position to cross the distance between us, so fixed they are in their fear. I still have love for them, but it is also mixed with sorrow; that their faith in themselves and others is so limited; they are in effect hiding from life and the kind of enrichment that can only be achieved through being vulnerable with others, and find that—flaws and all—you can still find unconditional love and acceptance, for none of us here are perfect.

The strange thing I’ve come learn about interpersonal boundaries is that they are isolating no matter what. For the person who is forced over time and error, to learn how to create healthy boundaries and then put them firmly in place, and equally the person who lives in a world without boundaries. For they embody the relationship version of a bull in a China Shop; they only know how to break things—despite the very thing they long for most being wholeness.

My father passed away several years ago, and more recently since the cutting of ties between my mother and myself, I have felt what Didion refers to as “the loneliness of the abandoned child of whatever age.”

A friend writes to Didion about the death of a parent after the passing of her mother “despite our preparation, indeed, despite our age, (death) dislodges things deep in us, sets off reactions that surprise us and they may cut free memories and feelings that we had thought gone to ground long ago. We might, in that indeterminate period they call mourning, be in a submarine, silent on the ocean’s bed, aware of the depth charges, now near and now far, buffeting us with recollections.”

Reflecting further on loss, Didion writes that “Grief is different. Grief has no distance. Grief comes in waves, paroxysms, sudden apprehensions that weaken the knees and blind the eyes and obliterate the dailiness of life.”

For myself, I mourn the loss of my mother while she is still alive, and in the worsening of my poor health, it has dislodged so much within that I feel numerous waves of grief. For the good that was in my mother, for all the times she abandoned me, and for all that might have been. I grieve the understanding that my own mother’s mother abandoned her numerous times too, and my mother—whether she tried to or not—failed to break this cycle that leaves nothing but destruction in it’s wake, as it creates multigenerational bulls in China Shops. Capable of breaking much, and healing nothing.

#ComplicatedGrief #Grief #GriefQuotes #StagesOfGrief #ChildhoodEmotionalAbuse #Childhoodtrauma #NarcissisticPersonalityDisorder #Relationships #MightyBookClub

Hi Mighties,

Part 2 continuation
Just sharing a few pages
in this chapter: Metacognitive beliefs from a book I'm currently reading in the above title by 🇦🇺author Sarah Edelman.

For those of you who like journalling or apps, this may interest you to have a go

I shall give this exercise a go myself
#Anxiety #GeneralisedAnxietyDisorder #Stress #Selfcare #MightyBookClub

Hi Mighties,

Hope your weekend is beginning or ending as well as it can be.

Just like to share with you a section in a book I'm currently reading: 'No Worries: A Guide to Managing Anxiety and Worry Using CBT'
🇦🇺Author: Sarah Edelman
Here is a page with challenging worry, overthinking from chapter 'Metacognitive beliefs'

Belief vs Rational Perspective

I struggle with worry, it is a something I always thought was a big part of how I function and control the world around me. It has been a blessing and curse. It is hard to focus on the bigger picture. When you are focussed on trivial things or contemplating whether you did or said something .

#Anxiety #Stress #worry #GeneralizedAnxietyDisorder #MightyBookClub

Hi Mighties,
I would also like to share another page with you from same chapter: Shame and Its Accomplices by author (psychiatrist) Paul Conti in his book called 'Trauma The Invisible Epidemic How Trauma Works and How We Can Heal From It'

Referring to the following page attached:

-The first antidote reminds me of what I learnt in Mental Health course: Motivational interviewing - Miracle question

-The second last antidote you may have heard about Progressive Muscle Relaxation or also abbreviated as PMR - I have personally found this helpful and to add to this full body scan.

#MentalHealth #Anxiety #Depression #Insomnia #CheckInWithMe #DistractMe #Selfcare #Mindfulness #Bekindtoyourself #MightyBookClub