little miss reverse

Just passing

2009-10-26T10:06:00.003Z

Was just passing (metaphorically speaking) and thought I'd pop by.

I'm still on track. I've had a few blips this year, but LP does the trick. I was gutted when I realised that I still had to use LP, but it's better than the alternative. I've realised that I now have - or maybe always did have and ignored - an early warning system with regards to stress. Some particular things do trigger quite an strong stress response, mostly to do with relationships with friends and family and I do have to work at getting the stress button to switch off, even when the stressful situation has passed.

I had a situation with members of my family this year, that I won't go into, but I did experience bad sleep, tense muscles and other "stress" responses. My husband, who has never had ME, gets the same thing when he is stressed - to put it in perspective.

Basically what I'm trying to say is that I'm still recovered from ME and I have the capacity to do an amazing amount both physically and mentally, but I have to watch my stress levels. If I get too stressed, I experience stress responses that don't necessarily automatically switch off, so I need to use LP to do that.

I think I kind of thought that once recovered that would be it, but RT and LP are about a lifestyle change. It's sometimes easy to slip into old habits. So I have to keep my eye on the ball.

A friend of mine who had ME and recovered is now working in Morrocco teaching English. She did RT and LP. Another person that I met through this blog is well now and expecting a baby, she did LP too. Keep the faith people....keep the faith!

Thanks again to all those lovely messages, it's great to hear that my ramblings actually give something positive to people.

Adam and Abigail, sorry for the very long delay in response, but I rarely log on these days.

I learned LP from a woman called Gill in Bath. If you google her company hypnotherapy-bath.co.uk you will see a bit more about her.

Joe, for me I don't think it would have been posible to teach LP to myself in such a meaningful way. It has so many subtleties that you only get by experiencing the training. I think you could do a lot with NLP, but for me, I needed help.

Anyway, good luck to those of you still on the path to recovery, I wish you all the best in getting there.

Tracy
aka Little Miss Reverse

Thanks for all the well wishes...

2007-09-25T22:14:00.000+01:00

...just thought I'd stop by to tell you my latest news and I saw the comments you guys have left & just wanted to say thanks. I've been completely free from my old illness since my last post and my life has gone off in a completely different direction.

About 3 years ago, when I was very ill, I realised that it wasn't travelling the world that was the thing I grieved for so much, it was the potential loss of having a partner and a family. I really didn't think it was on the cards at all, due to all the challenges that having M.E. faces you with. I didn't realise I wanted to be a mother so much, until I was confronted with the possibility of it not happening.

As I recovered I was very honest with my partner that I wanted a baby. He wanted one as much as I did. So....to cut a long story short....about a month after I considered myself fully recovered, we decided to stop trying 'not' to get pregnant. We expected to have to wait 6-12 months at least, but we got pregnant immediately.

So we decided to go the whole hog and get married too. So in a month I will be a wife and in 6 months time I will be a mum too.

I have everything I could have wished for and thank my lucky stars every day.

My old next door neighbour once said to me, you have to believe that you can recover and then you will. He was absolutely spot on.

If you are interested in trying Reverse Therapy or Lightning Process, go to their websites, which you can find on Google. I saw an RT practitioner based in Clifton, Bristol and an LP trainer based in Bath. I can recommend them both.

One last time!

2007-06-11T19:07:00.000+01:00

Hello people out there! Well what can I tell you?.... I've been waiting to reach the magic 100% before coming back on here to tell you all about it. The truth is I've been waiting and waiting until I had it just right and then last night I was lying in bed, jetlagged from being on a trip to Canada, unable to sleep as I'd slept 15 hours the night before, when it suddenly dawned on me...I've been wating until I had got it 'perfect'. Now those of you who have done LP, will realise that this is something that some of us do that keep us stuck - PERFECTIONISM! Yep, that's one of my things! Anyway, the thing is even with ridiculous sleep patterns and exhaustion from travelling, I'm leading the life I want to live or in LP terms, I'm living the life I love. So I'm recovered, yes absolutely recovered!

Now, you may ask if I still have 'issues' and the answer is yes I do, but then don't we all. I had a bad week a month or so ago because I got stressed at work and completely forgot to use LP as I hadn't needed to use it for so long. So I still do stress occasionally and it still does have an impact on my energy and focus, but it seems more like 'normal' stressed-out as opposed to M.E. stressed out. That doesn't mean that I find it easy, not at all, but I know that's something to keep an eye on, I'm getting much better at it and I can get back on track pretty quickly.

The biggest change for me is that the anxiety has gone - I don't do that anymore. I didn't bat an eyelid knowing I was getting a night flight back from Canada on Friday night, missing a nights sleep and then going back to work this morning (Monday) and doing a full days work. My relationship is all smooth and fluffy now and any anxiety I had about living with my BF has completely gone. I can't imagine living apart from him anymore.

I was going to work full time as a test of full recovery, but it became apparent pretty quickly that I could work more hours on more days if I felt like it (I did for time-off-in-lieu for a while) and then I didn't feel the need to 'prove' that to anyone. I also wanted to put my energy into other things, so I decided to stay at 18 hours a week.

As for the other things that I wanted to put my energy into... I've been getting fit! I've been doing a lot of belly dancing and performed in a show a month ago. I was rehersing 3 times a week for 3 or 4 hours at a time. It was totally full on and I loved it. My feet blistered and my muscles ached but I just felt liberated. I've also been doing Pilates about 3 times a month and going to the gym a few times a month.

Apart from work and excercise, I've been going out socialising a fair amount as well as going away for weekends. I had a run through March, April and May where there was something on most weekends. Just had a weeks holiday in Canada, and in a week and a half I'm off to Glastonbury, working as a Fire-Steward.

The first half of this year has been hectic! It took me a couple of months to get my head around the whole LP thing. At first I was doing it too much and 'hunting' negative thoughts which was just amplifying things. Then I wasn't doing it enough and got caught out that way. Then I forgot to use it (as it was working and I hadn't needed to do it for so long) and got caught out again. But it didn't take long for me to get the hang of it and reap the rewards.

I've stopped counting how many days or months it is since I last had 'symptoms' and I think that has been very helpful as the aim of this is to focus on what is going right, not on what is going wrong. That's also why I stopped blogging, because I felt blogging required a balanced view and I felt that giving a biased positive view (although that has been the key to my recovery) was a bit unfair to blog to those who might want to hear of the difficulties as well as the achievements.

Now I gently nudge myself back on track using LP quietly in my head and that generally keeps me on track. Every day I feel lucky and blessed that I have such a nice life. I love the city I live in, I enjoy my job, I have good friends a great boyfriend and have opportunities to indulge in my interests and passions and holidays abroad on top! The more you look for the good things in your life, the easier they are to spot and the bigger and brighter they become.

I also want to say that I feel that doing Reverse Therapy and Lightning Process has been a very powerful combination. For me, having done RT and getting familiar with my bodily sensations of emotions then informs the things that I do LP on. RT has helped me identify what I want and LP helps me make it happen. LP has helped me overcome the stuff that goes on in your head that stops you from doing what you really desire. I'm not really explaining it very well, but for me I think I needed both.

Anyway, this is getting incredibly long and my man is just calling me for my dinner, so I must go now.

Miss B
xxx

Love you and leave you...

2007-01-27T20:33:00.000Z

I've been doing the Lightning Process for a couple of weeks and as a result have realised that I can no longer do this blog in the way I have been doing. Usually I go away, do something then come back and tell where it has worked and where it hasn't, where it has been easy and where it has been difficult.

This isn't going to work with LP because of how I need to do the process. I'm probably not making any sense to anyone who hasn't done it, but if you decide to go for it you will probably understand. If I continue to do this blog as described above, I will be undoing all my hard work towards my recovery and I'm not willing to do that.

So, I'm going to have to love you and leave you. I'm absolutely committed to a full recovery and I'm going to make this thing work for me.

I promise to come back one last time at some point in the future when I am fully recovered to say 'I've done it!', but until then, good luck and the very best of health to everyone who has been following this story.

If there is one final message from me, it is: there is a way out, just keep the faith, keep you mind and your eyes wide open and don't give up hope.

lots of love

Miss B xxx

Lightning Process (long post)

2007-01-20T16:15:00.000Z

Last week I did my Lightning Process training. It comprised of two lots of two and a half hours in a pair and then a one-to-one session lasting an hour and a half. It cost £420.

The first two sessions focused on showing you how your brain works and how it filters information. You can skew your brain filters positively or negatively and the theory goes that when you are 'stuck' ie you have M.E. you are filtering for negatives. This is something that happens subconsciously and the more you filter for negatives the more you are able to see the negatives. LP trains you in a technique to stop the negative thoughts and to re-focus your thinking towards the positives in your life. You do a conscious process which then has an effect on the unconscious mind. It is based on Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP), so basically you are re-wiring your brain in a positive way. The more you use the new positive neural pathways the stronger they become and the easier it becomes to stay on track. This is my own way of describing it, if you want more information, just google Lightning Process. I might get around to adding a link at some point.

In the first 2 sessions I was trained with another woman who had M.E. for 8 years. It was really good to do it with someone else as you could spot someone else's patterns of behaviour that is keeping them stuck, a lot easier than you can spot yours, which then helps you to become aware of your own. It is also useful in terms of learning, as LP uses a lot of different learning methods.

After each session, you were asked to go away, put the process into practice and then come back the next day to work on it. On the second day I kind of fell apart a bit, when I realised what I had been doing to myself and how that was sabotaging my health. It was quite a tough day emotionally, but I'm really glad that it was pointed out to me and I was able to do something about it.

In my final one-to-one session, I was really getting the hang of the process, the trainer and I worked on some of my specific issues and worked out practical ways to work with them. It turned out that I was doing something that she called 'parts' which meant that although the most part of me believed and acted in one way, a smaller part of me was believing and acting the opposite, a bit like a child having a tantrum. We worked on bringing that small part of me, back in line with the big part. After that I was sent out into the world to start living my life.

The next day was brilliant. I went to work, found it a breeze, came home and then went out in the evening. The day after I started to strugle a bit and went into a bit of a wobble. I managed to get back on track each time I wobbled until Tuesday when I fell into the 'pit'. The pit is where you are when you get stuck. I fell right in and started to think lots of negative thoughts, but then something amazing happened. Part of the LP process had been working it's magic on my subconscious and I had a 'eureka' moment, then the tiredness I had been experiencing lifted completely.

I know this all sounds a bit vague, but I have decided not to describe the actual process. This is for 2 reasons. The first is that it would sound ridiculous and would be meaningless as it is something you have to experience for yourself. The second is if I described what we did in the training, I personally feel that for those who might like to do it themselves, it would be detrimental to their experience. I have described it to some others as like telling someone exactly what happens in a film, its better to see the film yourself. Hearing someones recollection of the film will not give you anywhere near the same experience and could actually ruin your own experience of it, should you choose to go and see it.

Anyway, after my penny-dropped moment on Tuesday, I've been plain sailing. I've been using the process although hardly at all the last couple of days. I've felt 'normal'. I've been told by my BF that I look different. I feel well and I feel able to do things. I just started a Pilates class today.

The biggest difference for me though, is not in what I am able to do, but in how I feel about it all and how that affects me. Up until I did LP, I have been gradually building up the things I do, using Reverse Therapsy. Each time I tried to push out, I experienced a lot of tension and anxiety to the point of it bringing on fatigue and making me feel rubbish. I was able to do things, but I couldn't really enjoy them fully at first as I felt crap. It would take quite a while for things to settle in. After doing RT for a year and a half, I found no way to deal with this. It was really blocking my progress. I knew it was to do with my 'headmind' but knowing what it was didn't really provide me with a solution.

LP has helped me, within a matter of days, to be able to sort out this 'headmind' business. It's just removed the fear, the anxiety and the tension and fatigue that go with it. I just feel much more like 'I CAN' now. If I start to have doubts, I just do the process and it's keeping me on track.

Out of all the things it has had a positive effect on, the biggest of all is in my relationship. I have been having real difficulty settling in with my BF, now that we live together. Each time I feel I have a handle on it(like when I got back from India), somthing insignificant would set all my fears off again and I would feel distant in my relationship again and unable to feel my love for him (to the point of doubting it completely). I have been struggling with this for 4 months. A 2 week holiday got me almost back on track, but 3 days of LP has irradicated these insecurites completely. I feel absolutely at ease in my relationship now. I can feel my feelings again, I'm not cut off from them. I feel SO different and it is such a relief and such a pleasure again.

I'm hoping to build my fitness up over the next month or so (I feel so excited about getting fit!), then I'm planning to sign back up at the employment agency to work on the 2 days of the week that I don't currently work, meaning that I will be working pretty much full-time (about 30 odd hours a week). I want to do this as a kind of test of full recovery and I don't actually intend to work full-time after that. I feel if I can work full-time, exercise twice a week and have a full social life whilst being happy and content, then I am fully recovered. I am confident that this is what is going to happen.

India

2006-12-28T19:12:00.000Z

Just got back from 2 weeks in India. Had a fantastic time. Coped fine with the long flights, the heat and felt like a normal human being again. Think I really needed a holiday to break the downward spiral I was in.

After the holiday, living with my BF feels really normal now and the stress I was experiencing around that seems to have vanished. I'm feeling very stable and happy in my home now and my cats are well happy too.

I'm feeling pretty chilled again and ready to start the new year in my new job(well... old job, increased hours). I'm looking forward to doing my Lighning Process Training on the 9th January. Hopefully after that, will no longer be thinking like an ill person in a well persons body and can just get on with being a well person.

I'm thinking that if I get what I'm expecting out of LP, I will end this blog and stop using the forums that have been a great support to me whilst I have been ill. I know that I will experience more blips along the way, but as long as LP gives me better tools for dealing with stress, I think I will consider myself completely recovered.

I know I'm jumping the gun a bit, but hell, I was the same about RT and that worked for me too. Can't see any reason why this isn't my last hurdle before I reach the finish line.

I'll obviously post on here my experiences of LP, but hope to be off just living my life, free from this post-ME anxiety and fear VERY soon.

things are finally settling down

2006-12-03T20:51:00.000Z

I have NEVER in my life experienced such a traumatic move. I struggled with it before I moved with all the planning and the fear, then I found the physical side of moving quite tough and pulled the muscles in my back and after the move I found the emotional side of moving in with my boyfriend quite challenging.

I can remember back at the beginning of September I started to wobble and it has continued in one way or another up until this week. Last week I had a horrendous day and thought I'd had a relapse but it turned out it was my period and PMS exagerating all of my anxieties and draining all my energy. I arranged to work from home for the next week as I had felt so crap. On Tuesday I had some injections as I am going to India in a week, then something really interesting happened...on Wednesday I felt the best I had in ages. I think I've been carrying so much stress and anxiety (even about going on holiday and injections) that I haven't felt 'normal' for months.

I'm finally feeling good again after 3 months of turmoil. I haven't had a relapse, I just freaked myself out. It's been incredibly hard and I really thought I'd blown it last week. My biggest barrier to my health is my anxiety and the chemical memories that relate to past upsets. I can't wait to learn LP so I can put this all to bed.

Like I said, I'm off to India on Saturday and I know that I will be able to enjoy it now. It's going to be a really significant thing for me because my ill health started after I returned from a trip to India 5 years ago. It feels really good to be doing it and almost like I can pick up where I left off last time, but this time take a different route.

I feel like I've finally arrived at a point where I can just enjoy my new home and enjoy living with my partner and stop being so stressed. Phew!

all moved now

2006-11-10T15:10:00.000Z

Have finally finished moving house and all the associated nuisance that goes with it. It took about 6 weeks start to finish and I ended up having a bit of a flare up last week. I think it was when the adrenaline had worn off from moving and I just kind of ran out of beans and felt really exhausted and fatigued for 3 days. Considering the amount of stress I had to cope with and the mental and physical exhaustion I'm pretty pleased with how I coped, although it's never nice to have old symptoms recurring.

I packed all my belongings, I did my fair share of lifting and carrying on the day of the move, then I cleaned my old house from top to bottom and had a bit of help with painting a wall and mowing the lawn, so basically I was able to cope with all the physical side of moving. I mostly coped with the stress apart from towards the end when I did have a bit of fatigue one day but got rid of it by binning my list of "to do's" and going for a walk in the woods with a friend instead. The fatigue did kick back in a few days later after a tiring week at work and me getting annoyed with a friend. In retrospect I should have took the day off work as I was really exhausted and that probably would have avoided the fatigue.

I did actually take a week off work after the move so that I would be able to take it a bit easy, but I did my back in and wasn't able to do anything physical for nearly 2 weeks. So my attempt to quell the stress of having to get things done to a deadline didn't quite work out.

Things have calmed down again now and I can start enjoying being in my new home with my lovely man.

Some good news too, I'm going to India for 2 weeks on the 10th Dec and I'm very excited about it. I'm not anxious about it as I have been before and I'm sure I can cope with the long flight now, so nothing to worry about so far. Mind you I'm having my jabs on 29th Nov and I hate needles, so that should be fun! I'm expecting to feel very ill after them so I've made sure I have the next day off work.

It's all pretty exciting at the moment, I get back on christmas eve just in time for a party or 2 then on the 9th Jan I've got Lightning Process training, so next year should be a very different year for me. I'm so looking forward to it and looking forward to things becoming much easier for me. I have another friend who is off to do LP next week and she is practically wetting herself in excitement and I'm almost as excited to hear how it goes for her.

Reading this makes it sound like I'm buzzing around doing loads and I suppose I have been during the move, but it really doesn't suit me and I'm aiming for a very chilled existence now. I've got 5 days off work over this weekend and plan to spend most of it lounging around and having lie-ins and getting told off by my friends for still being in bed at 11.30am. Ahh bliss!

Cold

2006-09-29T21:46:00.000+01:00

Now I have a cold. It's only a mild one, but it seems to be doing the rounds at work, so I suppose this is what being almost recovered brings.

My anxiety has subsided now and I'm looking forward to next Saturday when I will finally be moving in with my BF. I'm living in amongst piles of boxes and chaos at the moment, but it feels good to be doing it.

My BF pointed out that my big anxiety thing coincided with my period (again!). Three days in and the adrenaline decended and I started freaking out about the 'big move'. I haven't had that happen for 9 months (since I had a big bust up with a friend). I had completely fogotten about that kind of thing happening, but it does appear that when I have a big headmind/bodymind battle going on, it attaches itself to my period and then it kind of explodes on day 3. Great fun! At least I understand why it was such a strong reaction, even if I don't quite know how to handle it at the time.

A few of my friends suggested I contact my old therapist for some advice, which I did. The advice was that I was getting stuck up in my headmind and needed to get into my body. That is good advice for day to day stuff and generally is what I do and do very well. I didn't receive any guidance about how to stop my head going bonkers, which helped me make up my mind about whether to try Lightning Process.

I also had a phonecall from a friend who had recently tried LP and found it really helpful for a chattering headmind. My friend had problems with anxiety which were really impacting on life, so to hear that it was helpful gave me confidence to go for it myself.

I've applied to do the training course in January and I reckon that it will compliment what I have already gained from RT and help me get my worrying head under control.

It's pretty expensive (£500), but to be honest, I'm pretty sure from what I've heard that it is exactly what I need now. I know a lot of people would say to me. 'what if it doesn't work!'. I'm not thinking like that at all, I'm just thinking that I'm probably going to be fully recovered early next year. Because RT has worked for me, I think this will too as they seem to be in the same ball park in terms of theories.

RT has helped me to be really in touch with what I want and what I don't. It has helped me to be more assertive, confident and has got rid of my illness. I think LP will help me learn more healthy ways of dealing with stress and techniques for stopping the cycle of negative thoughts leading to anxiety and tension.

That should do it I reckon.

Mister Tones...

2006-09-21T16:56:00.000+01:00

...wondered why I haven't posted for a while. I've been busy and I've also had an increase in symptoms, which all sounds a bit bad, but it's just a rather large blip I think and hope.

After my last post, I went to hell-on-earth, oh I mean V festival. I'd been there an hour and said, I'm never coming here again. We had to walk about a mile and a half to the campsite carrying all of our camping gear, then we had problems getting out wristbands, then there wasn't enough camping space, then there was torrential rain. That was all before we even got onto the festival site. Then there were the horrid chavs chucking pints of urine into the air, the lack of toilets, the lack of water pipes, the rubbish sound systems and the general feeling of being down the city centre at 2 am on a Saturday night. Some of the music was great, but I was so exhausted by it all I felt like crying. Not a symptom in sight though. It's wierd, I cope brilliantly with any kind of physical stress you want to throw at me these days and even though I was physically exhausted, it only took me a good night's sleep to bounce back.

Since then, I've had a few things that have set of symptoms. Firstly I'm moving in with my boyfriend in 2 weeks time and I'm really not coping with the emotional turmoil of the whole thing. My initial trigger was connected to a relationship and moving in with him is setting off a whole load of chemical memories and general anxiety. I'm finding it incredibly difficult to deal with it which is setting off symptoms.

On top of that, I had a virus or a big ME flare up, a bit unsure about which it was. My BF caught something that was halfway between a cold and flu. I was with him when we were in the room with the person who he caught if from and we both said afterwards, bet we catch it. Anyway, a week later BF comes down with it, then the next day, I'm floored too. The thing is, I didn't get any sneezes, mucus, coughing, or any 'cold' symptoms at all. I had a banging head and felt fluey and really weak. Sound familiar? I'm not really sure if my body was fighting off the virus which caused an ME flare up, or what. It took me over a week to get back to normal, but then I have been completely back to normal.

Just to chuck something else onto the fire, I went to the dentist last week for the first time in 5 years. I'm phobic so have avoided going whilst ill as didn't think I could cope with the adrenaline. I got all worked up last week and ended up feeling physically worn out and a little bit fatigued too. I'm looking forward to Monday...got to back for the filling and hygeine appointment. I'm already stressed out as it is about the other stuff.

At this moment, I've just come home from work and I have tension and a bit of fatigue, which are the symptoms that I am left with these days. But, I worked 6 hours today, I normally work 4. I'll be in work for 6 hours tomorrow too. I've just got back from 5 days in Ireland, so I'm still able to do loads and even increase my activity when I'm experiencing symptoms. I just hate feeling so knotted up.

Generally I'm still on the up. I've had a lot more tension and fatigue over the last month and I don't think it will subside until I've moved in with my BF as I think that is the underlying stress factor. I am doing OK, but I am feeling frustrated and stuck.

After the experiences of the last month or so, I am convinced that my remaining problem is anxiety. I am symptom free as long as there's nothing particularly stressful going on, but that's not a long term solution. I want to try to have a baby next year and if anything is going to cause stress, then that will, so I need to find a way of dealing with the anxiety. I'm going to see if my old RT therapist might have some ideas, but I'm also toying with the idea of trying Lightning Process (www.lightningprocess.com) as it may help me.

Sorry for the long post and the even longer gap.

hello symptoms

2006-08-15T18:29:00.000+01:00

flippin ek, I got symptoms today. Only very mild fatigue - tension in my neck, headache, sore eyes and a general feeling of grating in my head, like everything needs a bit of oiling.

I feel like swearing a lot, sh**, bo******, f***! Hate it when I get symptoms after going so long without any, I wish it would all just go away now. I get it! OK! So stop flippin doing that now!

The reason for the symptoms is anxiety. I have been feeling a bit stressed about going to V festival this coming weekend as I am having trouble sorting out my disabled access to the disabled carpark and camping field, as I don't have a disabled ticket. I've been emailing all week without a response, I've phoned up the ticket agent and they just suggested I buy another ticket at a further cost of £120, but they don't have any left anyway. Grrr! It looks like I'm not going to be able to take my car on site, so I (my boyfriend probably) am going to have to carry my camping gear, which is stressing me out. There are lots of unknowns, so I am getting a bit anxious.

I spoke to my bf and we decided that if it's all too much we can just come home early, so I have given myself permission to leave at any point. I do want to go, but I don't want to have a stressful time.

Symptoms are mostly related to anxiety of future things and chemical memories related to past events these days. Thanks goodness I don't feel like that every day anymore, what a relief. Feeling well is such a blessing. Role on tommorrow and fingers crossed this horrid cloak of fatigue lifts.

What can I tell you?...

2006-08-10T18:52:00.000+01:00

I've been busy 7 out of the last 8 weekends. Exhibitions, camping trips, parental visits, weddings, friends to stay and festivals. Not only that, but I've been working on the weekdays inbetween too.

I've just come back from the Big Chill festival which, last year, was my first big adventure after being ill for 3 years. I was surprised at how much I managed last year, but this year, I'm more surprised at what I've been doing either side of the festival. Last year I had to rest up either side of the festival. This year I've worked up to the day before, then had one day off when I got back. Yesterday I went back to work and today we started to deliver a training programme on alcohol and drugs to a group of young people.

My stamina is still building slowly and I do wish I could push along a bit quicker, but I'm just going as fast as my body will allow. I can really wear myself out physically or mentally and all I need is a good nights sleep, which I usually get these days, then I'm back to normal.

I haven't had any more chemical memory related symptoms or any other symptoms since the day of my interview, so that's 4 weeks. Before that day I'd gone 7 weeks without any symptoms. So 11 weeks with only one episode of symptoms is pretty good going.

I have had to drop my swimming recently as I've not had enough energy, but once I'm in the swing of working 12 hours a week, I'll start it back up again. Whenever I increase my activity, something has to go on the backburner for a while. I'm hoping to start a Spanish class again in September too. Then in January the plan is to get a proper job of 18hrs or more.

Life's pretty good!

The difference between pacing and RT

2006-07-31T10:29:00.000+01:00

A while ago, I had a discussion on the RT forum about what I think the difference between pacing and RT is. I thought I would put my ideas on this blog incase anybody might find it useful:

Recovering from ME is like finding your own particular pick 'n mix. Before I found RT and discovered that it worked for me, I believed that pacing was the way forward and applied it very succesfully to my life. It helped me to recover a hell of a lot, but then I relapsed really badly, recovered again and then relapsed again. It addressed the symptoms but not the causes for me. It was also a top down approach based on past experiences, rather than a bottom up approach based on how I felt in the present. I also found a lot of anxiety and feeling like I'd let myself down when I woke up feeling ill again, in pacing. It was quite a harsh life, timing activities and saving energy. I often felt like I wanted to continue with something but feared how bad I would be the next day, so didn't do it.

I found that RT was like pacing but with you body making up the rules rather than your head. Much better for me and far more kind and forgiving and far less fear, which may have been a big factor in keeping me stuck in the symptoms cycle.

What do you mean by top down and bottom up approaches? In what way is pacing based on past experiences?

In my experience, in pacing you work out using your head/intellect how much you will be able to manage to form your baseline and then you stick to it. So that is why I describe it as top down, as it is coming from the head, which overules the body. You increase your activity when you no longer experience symptoms in your baseline activity. The judgement is an intellectual one based on how doing particular activities has affected you in the past. The 'feeling' aspect of pacing is around how the symptoms feel, so you may have felt really ill, so choose not to do that activity. I used 'Better Recovery from Viral Illnesses' by Darrel Ho Yen (I think that's his name) as my bible during the first 3 years of my illness and it did work really well, but you have to be quite strict with yourself, limit yourself for it to work and there was a lot of frustration at having to hold myself (my desries) back and fear of relapse. I was always fearful of relapse with pacing.

In RT, the decisions come from your desires, from your gut (if I had to place it) which your head then puts into action, so that is why I call it a bottom up approach. The decisions about what to do are based in the present moment, not based just on how the symptoms feel, but on how the desire/need feels too. So that is why they teach you not to stop when you have symptoms, but read your card and then act on what bodymind or your desires want. If you are able to successfully put this into action, it irradicates the fear based on 'overdoing it' that you get when you are 'pacing', because you are allowing your body to guide you.

New girl

2006-07-24T16:11:00.000+01:00

Well I did get the job and I started today. I wasn't at all anxious until I got within about 100m of the place then I felt a little bubble rising. I have felt a bit tired but OK. I think I was tired anyway as I've been to a wedding over the weekend.

About 1pm I started to feel a bit of tension, but ate my lunch and it went away. Sometimes it's easy to forget that BM is in charge of all the physical things like telling you when to eat, drink, get cool, get warm, rest or be active.

It's hot and I need a rest now as it's back to work tomorrow. I think this is going to be easier than I anticipated.

It was symptoms

2006-07-13T09:32:00.000+01:00

Well, I thought it might be, but yes I did have some symptoms yesterday. I used to call it fatigue as it was usually accompanied by feeling fatigued, but it was slightly different this time. I still had that horrible tension across my shoulders and up over my scalp, a headache, puffy eyes, and bit of a slow brain, but I still managed to go to work, go for an interview and then go dancing. I had to sit out of dancing towards the end, so my energy was lower than usual, but not fatigued as such.

I'm pretty sure it's the whole work thing. I do have some underlying anxiety about it but I believe it is chemical memory stuff. I've been more busy in the last month than I have been in the 4 years and at times have pushed my limits with no appearance of symptoms. This week, things have gone back to my normal level of activity, now that my Spanish class has finished and the exhibition is over, so activity wise, I'm doing less. I think for me, when I got ill, a lot of chemical memories were set up because I had just started a new job, then started to decline. A lot of the things that happened when I became ill, happened on the way to work or at work or about work, so work is a problematic area for my BM.

Again, I'm just going to have to give it a go like I did when I started temping and see what happens. I'm sure they will go away once BM sees that I am taking care of myself. I was quie clear at the interview about what I was willing to do and not willing to do to, so I just need to be assertive about my own needs.

Saying all that, I haven't got the job yet. Talk about confidence! I'm just calling it forward planning.

interview

2006-07-12T17:38:00.000+01:00

I had an interview for a summer job today. Yesterday, I started to get a bit anxious and my headmind was convincing me that going for this job was a bad idea. I recognised that it was coming from the head, not the gut so I decided to put it aside until after I had the interview.

I have had some symptoms of anxiety today, but when you've had an illness that has so much anxiety attached to it, it's hard to tell what is plain anxiety and what is a symptom of the illness. I've had a bit of tension and the bit behind my ears hurt a bit. I know I always used to get this as part of my M.E. but is it just anxiety or a return of symptoms? Can't decide, but I'm going to be a glass half-full person and say that I'm still completely symptom free.

The interview went well, it's my first in almost 5 years. I will be an official member of staff, not a temp like I am at the moment, if I get it. A couple of months ago I didn't think I'd be up for that until at least January. It's also for about 12 hours a week, double what I'm doing at the minute, but I know I can cope with it now.

I'm wondering...if I get the job...will it set off some chemical memories? I think it is possible with this tension that I have at the moment. I'll have to wait and see what happens. But until then...I'm 7 weeks clear!

6

2006-07-05T16:46:00.000+01:00

6 weeks clear.

Still been busy. Weather has wiped me out a bit, but only as much as others.

Got an interview for a summer job next week. It's 10-12 hours per week, so that will be about double what I'm doing now. It's not all with young people so it should be a bit less tiring.

Feel like I'm on track for my plan to be off benefits and New Deal by the end of the year. Hoping to continue temping in the School I'm working in, from September then in January get a permanent job working 15-20 hours per week. On top of that I'm hoping to go freelance as a photographer gradually over the next year aswell. I don't intend to go back to working full time in one job, I think I need the variety and flexiblity and less of the stress that 37hrs per week gives you. I want to have time and energy to do the things that I want and that I enjoy doing.

5 weeks clear

2006-06-28T18:12:00.000+01:00

Still no symptoms. I've been so busy too. I'm operating at the top end of my energy bracket at the moment and I'm starting to feel quite tired, but I'm good. I know I need to take it down a peg or two, so I'm not going to my dance class tonight.

Things keep feeling slightly different. I keep waiting to reach my limit...but I'm only just getting there after just over 2 weeks of doing something every day. I've done so much, I can hardly believe it's my life, not someone elses. Yesterday, I was on duty at the gallery for 2 hours in the morning, then I went to work for 2 hours in the afternoon and in the evening I went to my Spanish Class for 2 hours. I went to work today too.

Sleep is getting more and more like normal. I sleep for 8 or 9 hours straight through and even if I've been really tired, I feel refreshed from sleep the next day. Sometimes I'm still a bit tired in the morning, but I'm so far away from the fatigue I used to get, it's unbelievable.

There's not much to write about in terms of how I'm applying Reverse Therapy to my life. It seems to be part of who I am now and is obviously working a treat.

Anyway, I am tired, so I need to go and get away from this computer for a while, before I fry my brain.

4 weeks clear

2006-06-22T09:04:00.000+01:00

I haven't had any chemical memories or fatigue to contend with since the 25th May - that's 4 whole weeks! Chemical memories and fatigue are the only remaining remnants of anything that connects me to M.E.

The only thing remaining when I don't have these things, is low stamina that I am building up slowly and the normal tiredness that goes with it. Anybody having had a long term illness will have low stamina that they need to build up slowly, so I do feel like I've nearly cracked it.

I've had a lot of chemical memories to deal with over the last 4 months resulting in an increase in fatigue, but it seems I have cleared the decks quite a lot now and my body is starting to behave normally on a week-to-week basis rather than for a stretch of a few days at a time.

I'm sure something will pop up at some time in the future. I'm hoping to drive to Plymouth in a week or so, which is a two and a half hour journey, so maybe that will trigger something, or it might be something out of the blue like last time. Anyway, I know how to deal with them quickly these days, so I'm not worried about it.

BUT...how exciting!

Hola!

2006-06-10T10:29:00.000+01:00

I started my intensive Spanish course last week at evening class. It's 2 nights per week for 2 hours and one of those is on a day when I work.

Blimey, talk about brain ache! It's really difficult getting the old grey matter working like this. My photography course was very different because you could learn it drip by drip and it was mostly very practical. This is purely brain, brain, brain and it hurts! I'm thoroughly enjoying it though.

Something interesting is occuring out of all this... Usually when I do lots of mental activity, I need to balance it up with some physical activity or else I get tension building. I haven't been swimming much lately, or walking and I've missed my dance class for the last 3 weeks, but I haven't had a build up of tension at all.

I've got to the point of feeling completely tired out (not fatigued though) and then slept like a log and felt fine the next day. The tiredness hasn't felt so deep lately, it feels slightly different, but I can't quite put my finger on it.

My boyfriend has gone to Spain for 3 weeks and I'm pining for him a bit. I'm aware that I don't want to just fill up my time to avoid the whole 'missing him' bit as that will just bury the emotions for them to pop up later. So I've felt a bit sad and just thought, 'that's ok'.

I just reckon that everytime a chemical memory from the past arises and you deal with it, your body takes another step up. That has to be it, nothing else has changed in the last few weeks.

So, I've worked 6 hours this week, with my challenging little friend and I've also done 4 hours of study in the classroom and another 1 outside. I went swimming in a lake yesterday, I'm just off out for a walk and then I'm over to a friend's for a bbq tonight.

Estoy estupendo!

Sometimes I feel SO close to full recovery

2006-06-02T11:19:00.000+01:00

On days when I'm doing things that are not work related, I feel so very close to being fully recovered and by that I mean completely back to normal.

Yesterday I went to the Bath and West Show. I drove there in my car, which took about an hour and 15 mins as I got a bit lost. I spent 7 hours at the show walking around and shot about 150 photographs of sheep (on a bit of a sheep thing at the minute!). Photography is quite tiring as I get intensely focused on what I'm doing and I did about 3 hours of that. I walked miles and even stopped at the 'village green' for a beer.

When the show closed, I had my tea in a field, sunbathed for a bit and then drove home which took me an hour.

I was out for 9 hours and today my feet are sore, my legs ache very slightly and I feel a little bit tired, but I reckon anybody would feel the same after a day like I had yesterday.

I've got another photography shoot today, but then I'm going to chill out in the garden with a book.

On days like these, I feel so well I consider myself to be pretty much recovered. Shame I have days where my stamina is still so low, but it will come.

Chemical memory surprise!

2006-05-30T10:20:00.000+01:00

I'd been plodding along with no symptoms, anxiety or chemical memory (CM) related stuff for more than 2 weeks when I received a bit of a CM surprise. I didn't see it coming, it completely threw me.

My BF and I had planned to go up North to visit his parents over the Bank Holiday weekend. I hadn't met them before and was really looking forward to it. My BF had met my parents last month and I had no fatigue around that, so hadn't expected anything to happen with meeting his.

I worked on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday then on Wednesday night I woke up in the middle of the night with my head full of stuff connected to a previous boyfriend's family and struggled to get back to sleep. On Thursday I was fatigued and felt a bit tearful.

I know that when I wake up in the night like this, the thing that is on my mind is a message from my bodymind (BM).

I was really close to the previous boyfriend's family and we spent a lot of time together. The breakup with this bf was the biggest trigger for my illness, so BM feels it has a lot to fear. When we split up I was devestated and part of that was the loss of his family. I had completely forgotten how I felt about that.

Obviously my BM was feeling threatened by me meeting my present boyfriend's family. When I thought about it, I felt anxiety bubbling up in my chest.

I dealt with it by telling my bf how I felt, talking to a friend about it, having a bit of a cry. I also talked to my BM saying that I am looking after myself now and if we have to deal with that kind of situation ever again, I will listen to BM and respond in a better way than I did that time.

On Friday I was fine, we drove up to the North East and had a lovely weekend with my BF's parents with no anxiety or fatigue.

No fatigue for 2 weeks

2006-05-21T21:17:00.000+01:00

I've had no chemical memory/BM related fatigue or tension for 2 weeks now. That kind of tells me that I'm on the right track.

The more I get on with my life the less any kind of residual symptoms bother me. I'm learning to respond to what my BM wants much quicker these days, so I guess that is why I'm recovering so quickly.

I still feel frustrated at times with the pace of recovery and having to deal with all the chemical memory related stuff. Phew!

Bodymind in charge & headmind OK with that

2006-05-18T09:27:00.000+01:00

Over the last couple of weeks a couple of things have happened that have made me realise that I'm really listening to my Bodymind these days and not letting that daft old headmind get the better of me. The strange thing is that headmind is now playing ball and going along with it - hurrah!

Firstly, I've left my college course because my fees weren't going to be paid, even though they were in my first year. Anyway, it's a rule change that happened whilst I had deferred because of ill health and my tutor thinks that I am being discriminated against on the grounds of my disability. He said we could take it further if I wanted to. My headmind really did want to complete the course because that is what I have always strived to do in the past. Work really, really hard to achieve and I have done. Thing is...bodymind really couldn't be bothered and didn't really see the point of another qualification, even though I'm only 2 pieces of work off completing my HNC after 3 years of work. Headmind was saying, "come on, just a bit more work and you'll be there", bodymind was saying, "I'm there anyway, I've learnt loads and I'm happy with that". So I haven't pursued it, which I would have done in the past.

The other thing is to do with work. I worked 5 afternoons last week and although I managed it, I've been really tired (not ME tired). I thought I would make it to the end of next week as it's half term then, but yesterday morning, half way through the week, I got up and thought I'm not sure if I can do this without really pushing myself. On the drive to work, I decided that I wasn't going to go in the next day. I told them that I needed to go down to 3 days as of now and they were fine with it. I didn't give them much notice and this would have made me hold back before, but I knew it was what I needed to do.

So, this morning I'm sat at my computer and I feel like I could have managed to go into work today, but I know that I've done the right thing by my bodymind. I didn't leave it until it got to crisis point and I didn't allow letting others down to get in the way of doing what I needed to do.

I know these things aren't major lifechange things, but they are me putting my new way of behaving into practice to keep myself healthy and happy. So bodymind is telling me what I need to do and headmind is OK with it and I'm not getting in a tiz over it. I'm feel pretty good about it at the moment.

Monday Blues

2006-05-08T16:34:00.000+01:00

Well as predicted, my CM's interfered with my sleep and I woke at 5am then drifted in and out of sleep until about 10am. I felt dreadful this morning, really hungover and fatiguey, big puffy eyes and brain fog.

I knew it was just the old chemical memories and that the only thing to do was to go to work, so I went in. Once I was there I felt fine. It just lifted.

I did chat to the agency this morning as they have offered me the job until July and we talked about reducing the number of days, so I think that reassured BM too.

Anyway, work is cool, it's mentally challenging but I enjoy it and the staff are really lovely.

I still think that I might have some more CM stuff arising until I am towards the end of the week. If it all goes pear shaped, I can always jack it in anyway, the agency are really good about that and I don't feel pressured into anything. So fingers crossed...

Chemical Memories

2006-05-07T21:14:00.000+01:00

I started my new job on Tuesday of this week. On the Monday, I had fatigue. I had fatigue the day before work last week too, so I think my body is throwing up some chemical memory hurdles for me to leap over.

I went to work on the Tuesday and it was tiring but fine. On the Wednesday, I went in and within 45 mins my symptoms had flared up. I had tension in my neck, my eyes were really sore and I was starting to feel fatigued. Fortunately it was my break time, so I just told myself that it was OK and that it was all anxiety related and that I would be fine. I got home and had a really bad headache that didn't lift after resting, eating or taking some pain killers. I decided to go to my dance class because I have discovered that when I feel like this and it is brought on by mental activity, the best way to get rid of it, is to balance it up with some physical activity that I love doing.

The next day the fatigue had lifted (phew, it's always a relief when the RT works) and I felt really good. But a couple of hours later as I got closer to the time for going to work, I felt the tension building again and I could feel the anxiety and fatigue waiting in the wings for me. I did some EFT then I decided that if I felt as bad as I did yesterday after work, I would decide not to do it any more.

I arrived at work and as soon as I started, I could feel the anxiety lifting. It's only 2 hours and I know I can manage it.

I realised that the work I'm doing is in the same geographical area that I worked in when I was getting ill, it's with the same age group, with similar behavioural difficulties, so it was triggering a whole range of chemical memories. I have some more to overcome this week as I will be working 5 days in a row, which I haven't done for 4 years. I can already feel the anxiety building and the fear of not being able to manage. When I think about it rationally, I know I can manage it, but it's the whole CM memory thing that is causing all this anxiety and any symptoms that follow. The only way to get through this is for me to just do it, but give myself permission to not have to do it if I don't feel like it.

Tired Tuesday

2006-04-25T18:01:00.000+01:00

I've been a bit tired over the last few days and quite fatigued today, which is a bit of a surprise as I've hardly done anything. I've been having vivid dreams too. I think there's some underlying anxieties floating around at the moment.

I had an interview booked next week for a job with a photographic studio, but have been feeling that my skills are not up to what they want. It is a specific job using Photoshop and I'm not that up on it at the moment. It's also completely computer based work and I still have some negative chemical memories related to using computers and they make me tired really quickly.

I've got a photoshoot on Thursday for my bf's company, photographing a couple of local celebrities. I'm also assisting another photographer on Friday on a shoot he is doing for a BBC magazine.

I think all of this new stuff has been causing me some anxiety resulting in some fatigue.

The employment agency phoned me up earlier and offered me some regular work as a teaching assistant for the next month. It's just 2 hours per day and its work that I know I can do and have done in the past, so it feels a lot easier than all the photography stuff. I decided to take it and bin the interview at the photography studio. I've also decided to do a short course in photoshop starting in June, to try to improve my skills and hopefully do something about being able to use computers in a work environment. I can apply to the photographic studio when I feel more confident in my photoshop skills.

I can feel that I've made the right decision regarding the jobs and hope that the fatigue has gone by tomorrow as I'm working in a nursery in the afternoon. I really enjoy that and the kids really make me laugh - great therapy!

Things seem to be changing really quickly at the moment. It's taking a bit of getting used to, but it's all good.

The importance of headmind/bodymind alignment

2006-04-20T23:43:00.000+01:00

I've just had some kind of dawning realisation that headmind (HM) plays a role in symptoms and it's not all about bodymind (BM).

I got so caught up in trying to listen to BM, that I didn't really hear it when my therapist told me about BM and HM coming into alignment and working together to rid you of symptoms.

Conflict between headmind and bodymind can cause symptoms. A good example of this for me was when I needed to challenge a friend on how she had treated me. My BM wanted me to tell her that I was not willing to tolerate that kind of behaviour and I was willing to do that, but my HM did not want to do that AT ALL. I was stuck in a place where whilst I was sticking with my HM's desire not to do anything, I was getting symptoms, but then when I did do what BM wanted, I got symptoms as well.

I was quite confused by this at the time because in RT theory, doing what BM wants should get rid of symptoms. It's not quite that straight forward in some situations.

I think that it is important to do what your BM wants whilst also doing something to reassure your HM in some situations. An example of that might be that you (your BM) desires to go to the cinema after not having been for 4 years. You feel that strong urge to go, but you also feel anxious "what if I get fatigued/wobbly/headache/intolerant to noise/any other symptoms when I'm there?". In order to reassure your HM you could give yourself permission to leave at any point and even pop out for a break/to go to the loo during the film, allowing you to do what your BM wants whilst providing your HM with some security.

My BF and I have been talking about moving in together which is fantastic and is really what my BM desires. BUT I've been having some anxiety about giving up my own home and all the "what ifs" about it not working out. Up until now, I would have been trying to work out which is HM and which is BM. Is the anxiety BM anxiety or is it HM anxiety? I don't really know which is which for sure, but what I do know is that there is some HM/BM conflict going on about this issue. I started to get fatigue on Tuesday of this week and this issue was buzzing around in my head. I'd also been really physically active. Pre RT I would have put the fatigue down to overdoing it physically, but I know it doesn't work like that now I'm applying RT.

On the Wednesday, I could feel the fatigue building. I still went to my dance class despite feeling fatigued (something I wouldn't have done pre-RT because it would have made fatigue worse). BM wanted to go dancing despite HM saying "what if you overdo it!" and "you've been really physical this week, you shouldn't do any more". When I got home I emailed my bf about the anxiety issues about us moving in together, not in a "what are you going to do about it" way, but in a "this is going on in my head" kind of way. I didn't even need a response from him, because on the Wednesday the fatigue had lifted and I did 2 hours of digging in the garden.

So you can be following what your heart (bodymind) desires and still be getting symptoms and be thinking "why isn't this RT working then?". It might be that there is a conflict between BM and HM. It is tough in some cases to get them to work together especially when you are opening yourself up in a vulnerable way or trying to learn to behave in a completely new and scary way.

For me a lot of these HM/BM battles are brought up by conflict, standing up for myself and about scary vulnerabilities in my relationship based on past baggage. I don't want any of these things to stop me from having the life I want, so I need to find ways of making sure that my HM and BM work together and not against each other.

I like driving in my car

2006-04-17T17:23:00.000+01:00

Just hit another major milestone in my recovery! I drove from Bristol to Birmingham in my car on my own and drove back again a few days later. I haven't been able to do that for more than 4 years.

I did have some anxiety about driving up and I could feel the symptoms almost waiting in the wings to come and get me, but recently I've been able to overide them somehow. I think it's because I know that it is all based on anxiety and that they disappear with familiarity with the activity. So, even though I felt anxious and I did get a headache from driving, I just took it easy, stopped and had a long break when I needed to and stepped back from the anxious feelings. I used the radio to distract myself from the anxiety and when I felt it creeping in on me, I drove in the slow lane, turned up the music and sang at the top of my voice. It all worked a treat.

I was really tired when I arrived and had to lie down for half an hour, but then I was fine and there was no post-exertional stuff the next day.

On the way back, it was much easier. I didn't get a headache and I didn't need to stop and even went out to the pub in the evening. I still felt the anxiety trying to get a hold, but I knew I could do it, so just ignored it.

This is a really important step for me because for a while I have had chemical memories related to driving and this has shown me how the negative CM is being replaced with positive CM and the symptoms are disolving.

The biggest bruise!

2006-03-31T16:16:00.000+01:00

Not much to report in terms of M.E. or big changes in how I'm doing with RT. I've been incredibly busy over the last week or so and just returned from a holiday at Croyde Bay. Did lots of walking, coped with a 2 year old and had lots of fun, went swimming and bashed my arm on the side of the pool in excitement as decided to go on the water slide. I've got the biggest bruise I've had in years on my arm! Coped with the adrenaline rush from the slide (hell of a BIG slide!), no after effects.

I'm feeling a little bit tired from all the things I got up to, but only experienced symptoms on the way back in the car and I know that is anxiety - "how will I cope with a 2 hour car journey???" I coped fine!

I'm off to Plymouth for the day tomorrow to see a friend I haven't seen for almost 5 years due to both of us having M.E. I'm really looking forward to it.

2 days of fatigue

2006-03-24T17:14:00.000Z

Last weekend I had a very normal weekend. I went over to my bf's on Friday night, we had a meal and some wine, stayed in. On Saturday I just mooched about and on sunday spent a few hours with my bf and went out for a wander. When we got back to his, I needed a lie down for 10mins, which turned into an hour, I felt really tired.

On Monday I had a 9am start at college and felt a bit fatigued after. On Tuesday another 9am start and felt really fatigued for the rest of the day, so had a chilled day on Wednesday, but went belly dancing on Wed night. This seems to shift fatigue for me sometimes as long as I don't go overboard with it. It worked this time.

On Thursday we went out for the day. We went to Sand Bay and the last time I was there in June 05, I had fatigue (the kind where all you can do is lie on the sofa) for 2 days after. This time we walked the same amount, went for lunch then to Weston to play in the arcade on the pier. Lots of fun.

This morning I got up and went to work for an 8am start. So although I've had a fairly fatigue-ey week, I've still been able to go to college, dancing, go out for the day and go to work for 5 hours. Not bad really. I haven't felt my best, but just dropped down a few gears rather than having to stop completely and start from scratch.

I think I'm probably over my blip. I'll have to pay a bit more attention to BM, I misjudged it the week before last and it caused me a bit of grief, but I seem to have popped back up now. I think a lot of that was body anxiety about work, which is calming down the more I do it. I am able to sleep the night before I work now and not get anxious and exhausted before I even start.

I'm off to watch a football match tomorrow and then on Monday I'm going to North Devon for one of those holidays that 'The Sun' does for peanuts. I'm really looking forward to it!

Aches and oddness

2006-03-17T09:09:00.000Z

After I went swimming on Tuesday, I felt a bit tired but OK. I hadn't been able to swim as much as I usually can and I realised that my body wanted to stop. The next day I woke up with a stonking headache and my body ached all down my sides and around the lumbar area of my back. I took some ibuprofen and had a chilled day.

By the mid afternoon I was OK, still a bit tired, but strangely enough it wasn't fatigue. I didn't feel it in my head, it was all in my body. This is something new for me. Something else which is quite odd, is that this particular type of ache - dull general achey feeling, like sore kidneys, with no specific point of pain and can get quite intense - is one that I haven't had for about 4 years.

This ache is something that I had when I was getting ill, after physical exertion, but I haven't had it since then. I've still been able to go to work with no problem so something has shifted. At work I did a bit of basket ball hoops with one of the kids and it came back on again - so it's something that is to do with physical activity but doesn't give me mental fatigue or brain fog, like physical activity used to. It's all very interesting.

So, I think I overdid it physically over the last week, but it's not a problem. It has given me some symptoms to work on, but I haven't crashed and I'm sleeping well, so there's no major damage. I'm just going to take it easy on the physical for a while.

I think this is where RT comes into it's own. I know that if I had done this prior to RT (and I did do so on many occasions!), I would have had a big crash with a return of all my old symptoms and it would have taken me weeks or months to get over it. I would have felt a great deal of anxiety about increasing my activity again and my life would have been very limited again for a time.

Hard Week

2006-03-13T15:22:00.000Z

The last week has been quite tough. It's been good, but hard work. Out of the blue I had a sleepless night on the Sunday night due to some rather strong coffee and chocolate cake (back to decaf for me!), so I was rather tired on the Monday.

I had my college assesment, so went in anyway and was fine. Later on that day I had an appointment to learn how to do EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique - see www.emofree.com) and by then I was feeling a bit fatigued. I felt tense and fatigued after the appointment as we had been focusing on some of my anxiety issues. I felt fatigued on the Tuesday too.

Despite feeling fatigued on the Tuesday, it was the kind of fatigue that resting doesn't get rid of at the point where I am now. It's the kind that's there when I wake up and I know that if I sit around at home all day, it does nothing to alleviate it. So I went to see a friend and then went swimming.

That afternoon I had a call from the agency about some work for Wednesday starting at 8am for 3 hours. I'm still getting into the swing of the whole work thing and I still have anxiety e.g. 'what if...I don't get enough sleep, wake up in time, get there late, I'm really tired, make a fool of myself in some way, make myself ill, have a relapse' etc, etc. It's not in the front of my head causing me to worry myself sick, but it's there in the background and that causes some of the exact things I'm worrying about to happen. So I didn't have a great night's sleep and I was really tired. BUT, I got there on time, was able to do the work no problem, didn't make a fool of myself and actually I enjoyed it.

I was exhausted after, so had an hour in bed then went out for lunch with my BF and I ate like a horse. Don't think he's ever seen me eat so much! We mooched about in the afternoon and then in the evening I went to my bellydancing class, which was flippin hard work.

I had a fairly chilled day on the Thursday, just went to a cafe, oh and I slept like a log on Wed night.

On Friday, I was up early again and to another job, this time for 4 and a half hours in a nursery. It was great, really enjoyed it. Again, I didn't have a brilliant nights sleep and had to leave the house at 7.45am, which is all quite challenging. I worked until 1.30 then popped to see a friend who lived near the nursery. I went to bed for an hour when I got home, then went over to my BF's for the night.

I'm having to do the 'feel the fear and do it anyway' thing, whilst recognising that it is my body that is in charge not my head. I've actually had some old symptoms (muscle twitching) reappear over the last few days that I'm waiting for BM to tell me what to do about and I am feeling tired today. I'll wait and see how I feel tomorrow before committing myself to any work on Wednesday - might have to skip the doing other stuff on days I'm working, but I'll see how it pans out. So it's not a case of just doing it and it's all fine. it's quite a juggling act.

Change (vanishing post!)

2006-03-05T20:57:00.000Z

One of my posts vanished and even though it comes up in a 'search this blog' I can't actually see it. I've tried Firefox too and still can't see it, so I've cut and pasted it back in here. Sorry if you guys CAN see it and it's here twice.

Saturday, February 04, 2006
Change

So much has happened since my last post that I don't know where to start. I've had a fair bit of fatigue over the last month or so, but the intensity has really reduced and it seems to be acting as a definite sign post to things that I need to sort out.

I've got to the point where I can be busy doing all sorts of things during the day and not get fatigue, but when I go home and have nothing to do, the fatigue comes on. My bodymind is not happy about me sitting at home not doing anything. It seems that all the things I do such as college, meeting up with friends, going swimming and for walks is no longer enough to keep me satisfied.

I went to Barcelona last week for 4 days and had no problem keeping up with my BF. I walked loads, ate whatever I wanted, drank lots of cava and even dealt well with being robbed and a 10 hour delay on the return flight. The holiday was fantastic despite the problems and was a real milestone as it was the first time I've been able to go abroad for 4 years. I felt great and had no symptoms at all, but my legs did feel like they were going to fall off from the walking, but so did my BF's.

After my holiday I realised that I have been going round in circles about voluntary work, work experience and paid work, but not found the right thing so far. This week I realised that I want to get back to work ie real paid work. I went to the jobcentre to find out the rules about working whilst on benefits. When I came out of the jobcentre after making the appointment I nearly burst into tears. I've been carrying around this frustrated desire to work for several months now and it was only when I nearly cried that I realised the weight of it. I'd been allowing my headmind to win by letting the concerns about money and benefits stop me from acting. Then my symptoms increased a lot and I had fatigue for the 2 days until the appointment. This is a real indicator of how RT works for me, when I get the right issue to work on, my symptoms increase as if my BM is shouting 'YES that's it!' at me to make sure I sort it out. After the appointment, I felt really fantastic and excited. I've put together a CV and approached a job agency about doing some work in schools and I'm feeling really good about it. I still had symptoms for another 2 days, so decided I must need to rest too, so that is what I did yesterday.

I'm feeling almost human today and feel as if I'm embarking on a new stage of my recovery. Things are going to change quite drastically for me over the next few months, so it will interesting to see what happens. I'm fully aware that getting back to work will be challenging and difficult, but I've already told myself that I will not push myself and if it doesn't work out I will stop.

Institutionalised by my illness

2006-03-05T19:45:00.000Z

I've been talking with other people on the RT forum about how difficult it is to change your behaviour as you become well. I described is as feeling 'institutionalised' by my illness. I'll try to explain the kind of things I'm talking about.

Some days I put on my alarm clock for 7am and get up before 8am. I go downstairs, feed the cats, get a cuppa, switch on the computer and go on some forums, read my emails, surf the net etc. Before I know it, it is 12.30 and I'm still in my dressing gown. I may have arranged to meet up with some friends in the evening, but I'll get there late, despite having all day to prepare myself. I may have one or two things that I might have wanted to do during the day, but probably didn't get around to doing them.

It's so difficult to motivate myself, turn up on time, be organised etc. I used to be sharp, but I'm not now. It's like I'm stuck in a loop and that loop is: the behaviour that I learned whilst I was very ill is the thing that is holding me back now.

There is absolutely no reason why I can't get up, have a shower, get dressed and go out into the world and do things for 4 or 5 hours in a row. But actually doing it is another matter. I'm not depressed, or even feeling low, I actually feel happy. I don't think that I can't do these things, because I know that I can now. I even feel a strong desire to do them, but just can't seem to get my act together. It's not like this all the time, but I feel like I've lost my ability to focus sometimes. I'm sure it will get better as I get more practiced at it.

I've found that if I behave in the way of 'an ill person' and by that I mean the behaviour that I used to use to keep me entertained when I was ill, then I get symptoms. I get tension and anxiety and fatigue. When I'm busy, I don't get symptoms.

It's all quite frustrating. I feel as if I need to really acknowledge that I don't have M.E. any more. I say that I sometimes 'feel' like I don't have M.E. any more, but I feel scared to actually say 'I don't have M.E. anymore'. So am I willing to say that??? I don't know yet... there is a fear in being well again, like it would be tempting fate to say it out loud.

Maybe that is why so many people are resistant to trying RT in the first place, for the same reason I don't feel able to say what I just wrote here. The thought of it not being true is just too damn scary and would be too much to bear!

achoo!

2006-03-01T10:50:00.000Z

I have a cold, hurrah! It's my second one in a year, so I think my immune system is starting to go back to normal. I only had one cold in the first 3 years of ME. I haven't had any signs of ME symptoms either. Possibly been a bit more tired than someone without ME or maybe I'm just better at listening to my body these days and have allowed myself to just stop.

As RT is going to be a way of life for me now, I took this opportunity to show my body that I am going to look after it properly from now on. I have stayed at home, snuggled up on the sofa for the last 2 days, taking vitamin C, drinking hot ginger, lemon and honey tea (with a good kick of fresh ginger) and just taking it easy whilst I could feel the virus in my body. I get a bit dizzy when I have a virus and know to take it easy. I phoned up the agency and instead of just cancelling work for today, I cancelled the whole of the week.

Now it's only a cold, I know, but in the past I have barely given myself time to get over illness before heading straight back to work. This is my chance to get it right this time, start as I mean to go on and all that.

I feel a lot better today, the sneezing has all but stopped and the dizziness has lifted, so I've kicked it into touch really quickly - only caught it on Sunday.

I can't help but feel positive about things at the minute. Even a cold feels like a step forward lol!

Milestone

2006-02-23T12:06:00.000Z

Yesterday I did half a days work at a primary school as a teaching assistant. It is almost 4 years since I last worked! This is a major milestone in my recovery.

This time last year, I was able to spend about 4 hours with my boyfriend twice a week, go to college for about 2 hours and maybe have a friend over for a cuppa one afternoon for an hour or two. That was my maximum. I had to rest every day and only do things that involved going out of the house on alternate days. I needed whole rest days inbetween things. My sleep was still very unstable and I was on medication for that. I couldn't walk very far at all and my stamina was low for anything physical. I could only drive on days where I felt really well, for about 15 mins.

In 12 months, my life now is unrecognisable! I can walk, swim, dance without post excertional malaise (wow! that was a big improvement), stay out late, do things on consecutive days, do 2 or 3 things in 1 day, I don't need regular rests and if I do need a rest 20 mins - 1 hour usually sorts me out. My memory is getting better, I am able to concentrate for several hours at a time now and I can drive for about an hour and a half. My flare ups, which still happen are much less intense, I don't get most of the symptoms I used to get, it's mostly tension and fatigue. Flare ups slow me down rather than stopping me these days and are usually in response to some emotional event, or not listening to bodymind.

I'm still way off full recovery and have a LOT of stamina still to build up. I couldn't go back to a regular week in, week out job yet as I still have my ups and downs. BUT, I'm able to do some, which is fantastic!

I'm pretty tired after yesterday, but I was ready to go back in today until the job got cancelled. From what I remember, you always get tired when you start a new job anyway, so as long as I keep listening to my bodymind, I think I will be able to manage. I intend to do a maximum of 3 mornings or afternoons a week for the time being, until I can cope with it standing on my head.

Wonder what the next big milestone will be??? I'm pretty excited about life at the moment.

Ooops!

2006-01-17T23:05:00.000Z

Thanks Elisabeth, that made me laugh! Yes, read hypothalamus switch off as the hypothalamus 'overdrive' being switched off, not that the hypothalamus decides to switch off completely, retire and move to the Bahamas.

Miss B

Hypothalamus switch off

2006-01-15T11:59:00.000Z

I've been having some discussions with other people on the RT forum about how to tell if your Hypothalamus (H) has switched off. It appears that some time into RT if it is working for you, your H switches off getting rid of a lot of the very physical symptoms. The sort of symptoms that disappear at this point are: temperature control, blood sugar imbalances, post exertional malaise, aches and pains. The result of this is that your physical stamina starts to increase and you stop getting the usual payback from physical activity. It seems that my H is now switched off.

The bodymind realises that it is now being listened to and acted upon, so stops sending physical symptoms. What you are then left with is learning to listen to and act on emotional and physical 'flags' in the present moment. In my opinion everybody experiences emotions and not responding to them in a positive way can lead to many other illnesses such as high blood pressure, strokes, heart attacks, IBS, etc, etc. I'm not just talking about feeling upset about something or being 'very' emotional, I mean imagine a guy who is at work and the amount of work he is asked to do is not possible in the time allocated to it. He may well get very stressed, irritable, unable to sleep, get an eczema flare up or a cold sore. This is bodymind in action, sending emotional flags as well as physical signs telling him something is wrong and needs to be addressed. RT teaches you to recognise these signs and not to ignore them but to act on them.

After the H switches off, you are still left with other less specific symptoms such as fatigue and brain fog, which come in directly connected to you ignoring some of these emotional and physical flags. Sometimes it takes a while to figure this out but so far each time I have experiences an increase in fatigue, it is because I am not responding to what my body is telling me. It's not just about unexpressed emotions, which some people seem to think RT is all about. In some cases that is because I am pushing myself beyond what my body is able to do, other times it is because there are emotions that I haven't addressed and sometimes it is because I have tolerated something that my bodymind does not want me to tolerate and that can be physical or emotional.

It may appear on the outside that I still get symptoms from increasing activity and yes I do, but it is very different to how it was prior to RT. My body gets tired when I do too much and as long as I respond to this by resting, I don't get fatigue or brain fog in a post-excertional way i.e. then next day. Sometimes I feel a bit fatigued from going on the computer, but when I stop, it lifts. I get fatigue that comes on and stays for a couple of days at a time, when my bodymind is telling me to sort something out, but it's not usually from physical activity and I don't get any of the old physical symptoms I mentioned at the beginning of this post. This means that I no longer fear relapse and can focus on getting my life back on track.

I've been doing RT for 6 months and I still find aspects of it really difficult, but some of it is really easy and I can't believe how quickly my body responded to it.

Bodymind's demands

2005-12-28T10:55:00.000Z

Since becoming ill in 2001, my symptoms MADE me have to deal with stuff that I might have previously put up with. It has been a very difficult and painful learning experience. When I started RT I wrote a list of things that I though my bodymind had wanted me to do over the years of being ill. This is the list:

------------------
Learning to say NO - Had to learn this very early on in my illness, getting quite good at it, but always room for improvement.

Learning to ask for help - found this really difficult as always been very independent, but have learned to ask a lot more than I used to...still feel bit uncomfortable about it sometimes.

Putting my needs first - Have found this tough. Have been a people pleaser in the past & like making people happy. Sometimes not even aware what my needs are to put them first and have thought I'm 'laid back' when in fact I've just been a pushover. Still learning.

Being assertive - I'm much more likely to start a sentence with 'I want...' than ever before and often make decisions by thinking 'what do I want?'

Being in the present - mostly very good at this now. Have let go of striving for the future and I'm much more content and happy for it. Happy to just mooch about and go with the flow.

Not to get stressed about things that I can't change - much less likely to get stressed about things out of my control. Didn't even get stressed about my DLA doctors visit, but would have got incredibly stressed and anxious 2 years ago.

Express my emotions and not supress them - Find I can express happy emotions easily, but find that expressing anger, disappointment, disatisfaction etc with other people tough as I still have the old banana of not wanting to upset people, but getting much better at it now.

----------------

By the time I started RT I felt a bit stuck. I kind of knew deep down that dealing with some of these issues was what I needed to do to help me get well but I was still getting symptoms so didn't realise how close I was. I expected RT to come up with something profound that I had missed. What RT did was confirm I was on the right track and help me take action on these things in a way that undid the chemical memories attached to the symptoms. My symptom message was really obvious, but it worked.

I think the key to RT working is to just trust and accept that the symptoms are all connected to keeping you emotionally and physically safe. They have been there to protect you, but are no longer needed. In RT theory the reason you have symptoms is because you have ignored emotional messages and then you have ignored tension and anxiety, so your hypothalamus has gone into overdrive causing symptoms. Using the symptom message and acting on what your bodymind wants as soon as possible, when you get symptoms, reassures your body that you are listening and undoes the chemical memories that are stored in your body.

In the RT books it says as you undo the chemical memories you may experience the reverse process, so physical symptoms replaced with tension and anxiety, then replaced with emotions. I have found this to be the case and now get mostly tension, some mental fatigue and very very strong emotions that I cannot ignore. Sometimes the emotions burst up out of nowhere and I have no choice but to deal with it. Bodymind is getting very demanding, but each time I give it what it wants, it allows me to have more of my life back.

I think I was almost doing RT before I started it, but because I didn't realise the link between chemical memories and action, it wasn't working as efficiently as it is now. It was like walking around trying to find my way with a blindfold on and RT has removed it allowing me to see what is happening and where to go next.

I know all of this seems really obvious and really simple and it is, but undoing the chemical memories takes a lot of hard work as it is trying to undo years of learnt behaviour and social conditioning.

Christmas time

2005-12-26T21:28:00.000Z

I've settled down again after my last post and something interesting happened. I went from being frustrated and bored to being content again. I think the whole college term ending had something to do with it as well as the relationship stuff and the stuff with my friend who is angry with me.

I've decided that I'm not going to do the voluntary work at the cat rehoming centre. After pondering it for a few days I realised that I would just be frustrated doing that. I don't want to clean out cat litter trays and play with cute kittens, I want to take more constructive steps to getting back to work. It has to be work that I feel some sort of connection with, not just work to keep me occupied. I thought it would be OK to do that, but my bodymind sent me a 'felt sense' message about it to tell me that it was not OK. Whenever I thought about working at the cats home, I felt an uneasy feeling in my body, a kind of dissappointment. I've decided to take another route instead.

I have a friend who knows a professional photographer who has said it would be OK for me to do some work experience with his company. Now this is more like it! He wants me to be flexible as work is a bit ad hoc, so that sounds perfect. When I think about this, I get a nervous, excited feeling and a sense of moving forward. Even if this placement doesn't come off, I now know that I need to do some work/placement with a photography company as that is what I want to do professionally when I am well enough.

I've had a bit of fatigue in the last week. I went to visit a friend on the Isle of Wight who I went to visit earlier in the year without any fatigue. The day before the journey I was a bit tired and probably wouldn't have got up early the next day had I no train to catch. On the day of the journey I set the alarm and woke up feeling tired. On the way, the train was very cold because the heating was not on. Everyone in the carriage was sat there with their coats and scarfs on. I don't cope with getting cold. I managed to keep most of me warm apart from my legs which got really cold. When I was sitting there, I kept feeling like getting up and going to see if the next carriage had heating on (bodymind at a really fundamental level). Instead I sat there for the 2 hours the journey took with cold legs not even getting up at all. I was tired when I arrived at my friends, but not too bad. The next day I had fatigue and the day after that the fatigue was worse.

In RT terms the things that I think caused the fatigue were getting up early when I would have liked to sleep longer and not acting on the cold situation on the train. I wonder if I could have changed the outcome of that if I had booked a later train and also when I was on the cold train, got up and checked the train for a warmer carriage. In RT even if there had not been a warmer carriage, the 'acting' on it might have reassured my bodymind that I was listening, but I just sat there, in effect telling my bodymind that I was ignoring it.

My bodymind does not like getting up before it is ready to do so (ie with an alarm). I'm going to have to work on this if I'm going start doing some kind of work. Not sure how to approach it though.

I am finding that my fatigue kicks in for smaller and smaller reasons, like it's tweaking things. I'm getting more fatigue now than I got after a month or two of RT. It feels llike I'm a puppet with strings that go down from the top of my head into my body, along my shoulders, arms and legs and when I'm fatigued it's like a giant someone putting their hand round my head and pulling all the strings tight up through the top of my head. It's horrible, I feel really tense and my brain stops working properly, BUT I can still do stuff and it is getting less intense over time.

Anyway, the fatigue lifted after a couple of days. I've had a busy christmas time with my boyfriend and spent the day with my dad walking along the river Avon today, so I'm still doing well.

Wobble

2005-12-09T17:09:00.000Z

I don't know what is going on with me at the moment, I am having a bit of a wobble. The good thing is that the wobble has not caused an ME flare up which would have been standard up until recently.

I've been irritable, stroppy, paranoid and insecure. I've had difficulty motivating myself and I've been getting annoyed with myself for not being able to get it together. I've also been bored. I don't know if I've been stroppy because I'm bored or what, but it's all a bit odd. I'm usually pretty stable.

I've had a difficult week with my boyfriend, who has been an absolute darling being patient with me. It's really difficult to explain to people why you are behaving in a certain way when you don't know yourself.

All I know is that it doesn't matter what causes me to feel this way, but I have to acknowledge how I am feeling and express that to to person/people concerned. I can't convince myself that I'm happy with stuff if I'm not anymore, or pretend that I don't care when I do. I am not allowed to ignore or surpress how I feel about things these days or tolerate things that I don't really want to, even if it means that I shock or upset or annoy another person. I've never been like this before and it's taking some getting used to.

When I have to challenge other people, stick up for myself or express how I feel, I try to be respectful to the other party, but it still can create a bit of a storm because people are not used to me behaving this way. I'm sure I will get more used to it and get better at handling it as time goes on.

As for being bored, college is winding down for christmas and I suddenly thought 'what am I going to do with myself for the next 3 weeks?'. I've reached a point where milling about and pottering is not enough to keep me happy. This is good news but it's also a bit unnerving. I've felt a bit depressed over the last week and I think it's partly because of this. My response has been to go to the volunteer bureau and get details of some voluntary work. It looks like I'm going to do a couple of hours a week in a cat rehoming centre (ahh). My house feels like a prison at the minute and I just need to get out and do something different. This is a new thing too, I've been content with pottering for a very long time, but maybe that was because it was necessary and now it isn't.

This is flippin hard work!

More talk about periods...

2005-11-29T18:01:00.000Z

Last month I thought I had sorted out the flare up that I get around my period and thought that I would know this month for sure. Well, I had some PMS which coincided with my friend falling out with me, so can't discern how much was PMS and how much was conflict stuff. Even so I only had 3 days of symptoms prior to my period. I haven't had the flare up 3 days in that I used to get up until last month. So I think I can safely say I've sorted it.

Hellish couple of weeks with a nice bit in the middle

2005-11-26T12:49:00.000Z

I've been having symptoms again. A couple of weeks ago I had symptoms because I was doing too much mental activity and not enough physical.

I also had a flare up of symptoms around a conflict that occured on a webgroup that I am a member of. I had mental fatigue and some physical fatigue and twitching muslces, which I haven't had for a very long time. I find it really difficult to know what to do in RT terms when someone gets angry with you. This person thought that RT was a 'con' and that it was like a cult and they were pretty aggresive towards me. They also pretty much said I if RT was helping me then I didn't have ME in the first place. I found this all a bit hard to take and decided to leave that group.

In that situation for RT, I just was assertive in expressing my opinions whilst maintaining respect for the other person. When it reached a point that I was unhappy with, I took myself out of the situation. In the past I might have just moaned about it or even got a bit passive aggressive myself. My symptoms didn't subside until I went away for the weekend.

Now for the nice bit in the middle... on the morning I was going away I had no symptoms and I only had symptoms once after driving for one and a half hours (in chunks) and on the way home as my bloke was driving my car in fog and I was getting nervous (he's a good driver...honest!). Ther rest of the time I managed to keep up with all my friends. I walked a lot, stayed up late, drank wine, talked loads, played games with the kids etc etc. I would have found it difficult being away with so many people (7 adults, 2 kids) up until now and I'm really happy that I can do that kind of stuff again. My legs ached most of the time from walking, but it was a healthy ache rather than an ME ache.

After being away for the weekend, I managed to go to college on the Monday as well as swimming, then on the Tuesday I went to college again. My stamina is getting better by the week now and I can notice a real difference in how much I can do in one day without getting symptoms.

During the week I spoke to a friend who was very upset that I didn't invite her away for the weekend. She is SO angry with me. I tried to talk to her about it, but I ended up making it worse and she put the phone down on me. I was really upset that I had hurt her and didn't know what to do, which ended up causing my symptoms to flare up again. I had about 3 days with symptoms again. I did RT on the symptoms, reading the message, but they didn't go away. I decided to write her a letter, I spoke to another friend about it and I had a good cry, which I think helped because the next day the symptoms had subsided.

I tried to think about what I needed to do to put my needs first and I felt that I needed to express how I felt, so that bit was taken care of with the letter. I needed to allow my feelings to come out, so crying did that bit. I also needed to be reassured that I'm not a really rubbish friend, so talking to another friend fulfilled that bit.

They symptoms had gone yesterday, so I went out for a walk with a friend which was really lovely, then I went out in the evening too. Even a month or 2 ago, I would not have been able to go for a walk and go out in the evening on the same day. I've also been out for a walk today despite staying out til the early hours last night. I'm tired today but not fatigued.

What exactly am I doing, when I say I am doing RT?

2005-11-14T14:22:00.000Z

I've had a few people ask me if I can tell them a bit more about RT. I think for the theory side of it, understanding the process and 'getting' it, the best resource is John Eaton's book. I can't really add anything to that and couldn't really explain it in a few paragraphs without making it sound like nonsense, so I'm not going to try. If you are thinking of doing RT or want to find out more about it, just spend the £10 it costs to buy the book, it's well worth it and you can get it on Amazon.

As for what RT is...well it's a journey and it will be different for each and every person who tries it. The difference between other therapies and RT is like the difference between dieting and healthy eating. RT is a way of being rather than a treatment.

When I 'do' RT it means that I am paying attention to my bodymind, reprogramming my brain with the symptom message and acting on what bodymind wants me to do. Sometimes it is easy to find out what your bodymind wants you to do and other times it is quite difficult. Sometimes doing RT means that I am doing a kind of meditation to connect with my body and to find out where I am out of balance. Sometimes it means changing my usual patterns of behaviour or prioritising things differently. This week, doing RT means that I have decided not to go to college because I knew if I went I would get caught up in my headminds desire to complete a piece of work, when in fact my bodymind wants me to do more physical not mental activity. So basically doing RT means being aware of your body, paying attention to the signs that it gives you when it is not happy and then acting to put that right.

Now that sounds fairly straight forward, but it is challenging when you have been brought up to behave in certain ways, ie be nice, don't upset people, don't talk back etc etc. My programming has meant that I have become a people pleaser, always trying to make sure others are happy, fulfilled, have their needs met to the detriment of my own. So doing RT in this sense, means speaking up for myself and challenging people even if I feel really uncomfortable doing it. It means saying no, asking for help and putting my needs before others. A good way of looking at this is to think of what they tell you to do on an aeroplane in an emergency - put on your own mask before you attend to others, even childrens'.

Out of Balance

2005-11-12T21:50:00.000Z

ooh it's been an interesting couple of weeks... not been doing so well in terms of symptoms.

I've had college work to do and I've been doing it. This means that I've been spending lots of time concentrating on things and lots of time sat in front of a computer. This isn't good for me at the moment because I'm finding the mental stuff quite difficult. I've also been a bit rubbish at doing RT in response to symptoms that I get from these activities.

From the outside it probably looks like I'm doing really well. I've spent about 12 hours a week at college and doing college work for the last 2 weeks. I've also been busy socially and organising a very small exhibition of my photography in a local cafe. The pay off has been an increase in symptoms.

There's something that I need to explain at this point. In RT, you don't really over do it, but you can do too much of one thing. My therapist told me to remember these 3 words: Balance-Variety-Enjoyment. When I had an increase in symptoms, I did some body focusing and realised that I had been doing far too much mental activity and not enough physical. I had let my swimming slip and replaced it with college work. This doesn't work for me. I allowed myself to get really out of balance and I'm getting symptoms because of that.

I've made a concerted effort to redress this and so had a massage yesterday and I've been out for a walk today. I'm keeping my computer usage down and I'm having a break from my college work. I think I'll need to work on this for a while to get things back on track.

It is going to be a real challenge keeping in balance when I eventually rejoin the world of work. Hmmm...think I need to take a step back.

Still feeling good

2005-11-02T13:58:00.000Z

Since my last post, I have been swimming, went out to see a band on Saturday night, done some college work, went over to friends for an afternoon, been for a walk in the park, been to college and been out to an open mic night at a pub last night. I'm a bit tired, but I think that is because I'm doing more and more, sometimes 2 or 3 different things in a day. I haven't had to use my symptom message for several days now and haven't had any fatigue.

My life is feeling like something that resembles normal apart from the fact that I'm not working. I think I'll be starting to think about work in the new year. At the moment I'm kind of preparing myself mentally for that change and waiting to make sure that I am now more stable.

The RT forum to which I belong is proving to be an invaluable tool in helping me understand the RT process. Hearing other peoples stories and seeing it from the outside helps me understand my own issues and how to resolve them. One thing I didn't understand until recently is just how important it is to be emotionally honest with yourself. For me, a lot of this journey is about learning how to stand up for myself, to ask for what I want, to say NO to what I don't want and to allow myself to express ALL my thoughts and feelings. It's not about screaming and shouting at others but allowing myself to say 'I didn't like it when you did that', 'I'm feeling envious about...' or 'I'm concerned about how you feel about...'. It's a real learning curve for me and a great lesson in assertiveness. I just hope I can apply all this in world of work, which is where I'll be heading next.

That's all I can say this week, still feeling good, still happy and still on an upward trajectory. Not that far to go now.

Success!

2005-10-27T17:30:00.000+01:00

I wrote in a previous post about the symptoms that I get around my period and about a theory that I had that connected my initial trigger with these symptoms. For the last 5 or 6 months I have had a flare up at the same time as my period and have felt very insecure about my relationship at the same time.

I don't want to explain the whole theory thing again as it's in another post, so I'm just going to explain what has happened.

Earlier in the month I talked to my bf about my insecurity and asked him for reassurance when I need it. He agreed to do that. This month before my period I had 2 days of fatigue that I'm not entirely sure were connected with it as it wasn't in the usual pattern. Anyway, even if I include those 2 days, this month has been a massive improvement.

My BF has been great and has been a bit more attentive (which he is anyway). I haven't felt the need to ask for reassurance as I haven't felt insecure. I got a new message to go with these symptoms, but haven't had to use it. I thought that the 'action' I needed to take would be something like asking my bf for reassurance when I got the symptoms, but it appears that the action was just talking it through with him.

I had ONE day of feeling rubbish because of my period, but even on that day, I did not feel fatigued. I have not had PMS this month. I have not had an emotional wobble this month and I have not crashed down.

Last night I went belly dancing and today I've been to a photographic exhibition in Hereford for the day.

I used to think that I would feel emotional and insecure BECAUSE of my period and PMS, but I now reckon it's the other way around. I know it sounds bonkers, but I've just regained an extra week of the month by following and trusting that RT would work on it.

I'll know for sure if I have resolved the e-motions that cause the flare ups next month, as it's alternate months that are the worst. Last month my flare up lasted 10 days, this month I haven't even had a flare up. How good is that!

working things out slowly...

2005-10-23T21:43:00.000+01:00

Still feeling a bit confused about the fatigue that I had on Wednesday of this week and on Saturday too, but I'm slowly working it out. If I'm understanding this right, then the things that are causing my symptoms to flare up are now causing them to flare up in a stronger way. This sounds bad but if it's correct, then actually it is good.

As I have said, I went almost 3 weeks without fatigue and have had a couple of days of it this week. On both days I think the thing that may have caused by fatigue is spending too much time on the computer. Pre RT this would have caused some fatigue, but it would not have been top of the list of things that set symptoms off. It seems now that as I have dissolved the chemical memories attached to physical activity, driving, socialising and loads of other stuff, the computer triggers stronger symptoms.

This is very odd and I'm having to get used to things having turned upside down. Yesterday I felt really fatigued, but I already had a night out planned to go and see a band. I did RT on my fatigue symptoms but didn't get a strong body response as to what action I should take. Because I had fatigue, I did feel apprehensive about going out, but I know that this is chemical memory stuff. So, despite feeling fatigued, I went, really enjoyed myself and even had a few beers and stayed out to 1am.

Pre RT, I would have been completely f**ked the next day. Today I had a bit of an alcohol hangover that began to lift as soon as I had my brekfast, but I felt better than I did all day yesterday. This evening I feel fine, a little bit tired, but no fatigue.

Basically if I'm correct, I need to work on the chemical memory associated with using the computer. I know what it is, but I think I've got into a habit of not being aware/ignoring my symptoms when they come on, whilst using the computer. With RT, when you get the symptom, you are supposed to stop immediately, but I know I don't do that when I'm on the computer. So stronger symptoms just means that I'm getting a clearer indication from my bodymind about what I need to sort out. I can cope with the odd day of fatigue from time to time, if the rest of the month I'm pretty symptom free and building up my stamina.

bit confused again

2005-10-20T10:57:00.000+01:00

Was tired on Monday, so didn't got to college. Tuesday felt ok, but a bit knackered as I got up at 7.30 for college....urgh! Had a bit of fatigue and a buzzy brain Tuesday night and took ages to get to sleep. Yesterday I felt fatigued. I had the puffy eyes, tight head, tense neck and shoulders, a bit of a headache and general feeling of not being at my best.

Not really sure why I had fatigue yesterday. In pacing terms, it could have been an accumulation of what I had done over the last few days, but when I tell you what I did last night, that doesn't make sense. In RT terms, I obviously haven't been listening to bodymind messages.

Anyway, pre RT if I had fatigue like I had yesterday, I would not have gone to belly dancing or done anything physical, because it would have guaranteed me feeling even worse the next day. But in RT you follow your body, so I decided to go and see how my body responded to dancing. I was a bit concerned, but after 10 minutes I felt better than I had all day. After the class I felt amazing and completely free from the fatigue. It returned after about 30 minutes and I did have a bit of trouble getting to sleep.

Today I feel much better than yesterday, with only very slight fatigue. Still not sure why I have got the fatigue, but I'm going for a massage in an hour, so maybe that will help.

The other thing that it may be... I have been 'expecting' PMS as I'm due on, so maybe I have been focusing on it too much and worrying and almost causing symptoms myself. Anyway, I'm a bit confused, but trying to stick with my bodymind rather than my headmind.

I've gone 19 days with only the odd pop-up symptom that has gone away again after doing RT on it. 19 days fatigue free, that's not bad!

Medication

2005-10-12T11:28:00.000+01:00

Before I started RT, I read somewhere in one of the M/RT books that it would be helpful if you could come off any medication before starting the therapy. This is to allow you to feel your sympoms (messages from bodymind) fully, so that you can then have a good idea about what bodymind wants you to do.

I decided that I would like to do that and come off my daily 30mg of Amitriptyline, as I feel that the time is right anyway. I've been on Amitriptyline for 3 years. I succesfully reduced to 20mg in about May, but then I caught a cold, which meant my symptoms flared up, so I went back up to 30mg. A month or so later, I succesfully reduced to 20mg again, but whenever I pushed my limits a bit, my symptoms flared up and I had to go back up to 30mg as my sleep went haywire. I tried one more time prior to RT, but once on 20mg, symptoms meant I had to return to 30mg again because of sleep problems.

Since starting RT, I have had flare ups in symptoms, although they feel different now. I succesfully reduced my medication to 20mg in August and despite the flare ups, my sleep has been unaffected, meaning that I didn't need to increase again at those testing times. I stayed at 20mg for about 3 weeks and then reduced to 10mg at the end of August. So I've been on 10mg for about 6 weeks and have had no difficulty in maintaining this amount despite my symptoms.

I'm coming up for my difficult patch, so don't want to rock the boat, but once I'm on the other side, I'm going to stop taking my meds all together. I'm not going to give up the prescription yet, as it could all go Pete Tong, but I'm confident. For me, it's another step in the right direction.

What they don't tell you in the books

2005-10-12T11:06:00.000+01:00

I've been going on an RT support forum and having lots of really interesting conversations with other people going through the RT process. One thing that we have been discussing is something that they don't tell you in the books. Reverse Therapy is hard work!

As someone else on the site said, 'this is not for the faint hearted'. From the books, you kind of get the impression that you attend the sessions and then something magical happens and your hypothalamus switches off and you get well. What they don't tell you is that it is YOU who has to do the switching off, which can take a long time and can involve blazing battles between your headmind and your bodymind.

A lot of us on the forum are finding it difficult to 'trust' our bodyminds and feel a lot of fear around increasing activity. Sometimes your head can really get in the way, going on about how you are going to relapse if you try to do something. It's flippin hard work. Also, because you are paying much closer attention to your symptoms, there is pretty much a constant dialogue between your headmind and your bodymind, one trying to win out, which is tiring in itself. Its pretty scary taking these steps sometimes.

Then there is the physical tiredness that comes from increasing your activity. Pretty much every week, I am pushing my physical and mental boundaries, which means I am physically or mentally tired a lot of the time. I don't mean fatigued, just tired. Being in a constant state of tiredness is quite testing and sometimes you just want to stay still for a while and get on the level again. For me though, I think I'd rather be tired 2 or 3 days a week and crack on with my recovery not that I am pushing myself though. The tiredness feels like when you've done a hard days work, so I don't think its a bad thing and I generally feel greatly or completely refreshed from sleep, which I'm taking as a good sign. I also plan in chilled days too.

So maybe when you read the books, you thought it sounds like a fairy story, well the reality is different. The good thing about all this though, is it places your recovery firmly in your own hands, which I've always believed is the way forward for me.

Increased stamina

2005-10-09T11:59:00.000+01:00

Last Sunday I went to a gig. Then on Monday I went to college. On Tuesday I went to college aswell and managed to stay for a while after lectures and do some work. On Wednesday I went belly dancing. On Thursday I went for a facial at the college. On Friday I was a bit tired, so had a chilled morning, but then spent the afternoon and evening with my boyfriend. Yesterday, my friend came over from Cardiff for the day and we went to the pub to watch the football, took the dog for a walk, went and got a take away and a DVD and she left at 10pm.

I have been able to do a lot of these things for a while, but not on consecutive days for a string of 7 days in a row, particularly not when there has been physical activity in the mix and particularly not without symptoms. I feel fine today. My stamina is really improving.

If I can sort out the 10-14 days of the month where my stamina dips, I think I will be starting to consider getting a job. If this was consistent I would already be doing that. I just need my energy and stamina to be a bit more stable and then i'll be onto the next stage.

In June of this year, I would not have expected to be where I am now, but I know I'm in the good part of the month at the moment and this may well change in a couple of weeks.

New symptom message for my theory

2005-10-08T14:39:00.000+01:00

I emailed my therapist about my theory and she said that it sounded like a very 'body' thing and rang 'body bells' for her. We exchanged a few emails and came up with a symptom message to go with this set of symptoms.

I've talked to my bf about it and we have had long conversations about why I feel this way at that time of the month. He's offered to do whatever it is I need him to do, in terms of reassuring me, when I decide what that is. It may be that we are already doing that, just by talking.

Anyway, I hope this works!

Trigger Events

2005-10-07T10:25:00.000+01:00

I have been going on a RT support forum (see link on my home page) recently, which has been really useful in expanding my understanding of RT. One of the members was talking about 'trigger events'. Trigger events are the event that caused your bodymind to feel under threat, physically, emotionally, mentally and caused the hypothalamus to go into overdrive.

I decided to have a bath and do some body focusing a couple of nights ago. I wasn't getting anything in particular, but then I started reading over some of the notes that I had written before I started RT. They were answers to the questions on page 92 of John Eatons book.

I have been mulling over the reason why I suddenly started getting really bad PMS and ME flare ups at my time of the month only since May of this year. When I read my notes, something suddenly jumped into my head connecting my initial trigger event, something that happened at the time I got the 'flu' that 'caused' my ME and something that happened at the end of April. It was like a line that shot through from the past to now. Each of these 'triggers' involved a betrayal of my trust. The first was enormous, the second was significant and the third was minor. Each time though, I have gone into an emotional turmoil the first time for several months and more recently just for a few weeks.

After the second event I caught flu, after the more recent event I caught a cold a had a mild relapse that lasted about 8 weeks. This might sound insignificant, but I have only had 2 colds in 3 years. Also the emotions were the same each time. I felt incredibly emotionally vulnerable, upset, I felt betrayed, insecure and a bit of a wreck. Apparently when looking for trigger events, you look for similarities in emotions.

My theory is that the initial trigger and the event that happened at the end of April might have become tangled up in my time of the month. It is possible that each time it's that time of the month, I revisit the trigger event emotionally, causing the PMS and the ME flare up that follows. The fact is that every time I'm due on, I do get insecure and feel the need for reassurance and this is not a personality characteristic that I am used to - this is new, since May of this year!

Obviously this is a theory at this stage. I now have some ideas about how to tackle the symptoms that I get when I'm on and how to try and pre-empt them. I'm going to have a chat with my BF later to put some ideas to him. If this works, I will be over the moon.

Gigs

2005-10-03T09:26:00.001+01:00

At the beginning of the year I wrote a list of things that I wanted to try and do. They were all things that I have been unable to do for the last 3 years. On my list was to go to a gig.

On February 14th this year, I achieved that goal. I went to a gig. On the day, I had to rest all day so that I could go. My boyfriend picked me up and dropped me home. I managed to stay at the venue for 2 hours, in a very noisy environment (obviously) and was completely exhausted afterwards. The next day I was really fatigued and the day after that I was less so, but still having a hangover from the event.

I have been to a few gigs inbetween and each time I have noticed an improvement in how I have managed it.

Last night I went to another gig, it was to see Goldfrapp. The gig was fantastic! In the daytime, I went to Morrisons to get a few bits of shopping. Then I drove over to my boyfriends and spent a few hours with him. Then I drove us to the gig, stayed for 3 hours till the end, drove him home then myself. I was pretty knackered.

I expected to feel very tired if not fatigued today, but I just feel a weeny bit tired. I put the alarm on, fully expecting to turn it off and go back to sleep, but I was able to get up. This is fantastic!

My ablitity to drive has really improved, my stamina is getting better by the month and the best thing of all, I am starting to be able to enjoy the things that make me happy, without having a payback from them.

I'm off to college later. Definitely would not have been able to go to college the day after a gig before the summer.

One very happy bunny!

A tough week

2005-09-30T20:40:00.000+01:00

This week has been quite tough. After writing my blog on Monday, I went into college in the afternoon. I didn't have to get up a sparrow's fart this week, so thought it would be a breeze. I arrived at my workshop and within 30 minutes, my symptoms started up. My shoulders got tense, I started to get a headache and my eyes got sore. My head felt really tight and the mental fatigue kicked in. I stayed for another 30 minutes and left as soon as the workshop ended. I went into the canteen, did my RT and all I got from it was 'I really don't want to be in there' and 'eat'. So I ate and then left.

The headache was a really horrible migrainey headache. I came home, relaxed for a few hours, took some paracetemol and then went over to my boyfriends for dinner. Driving was fine, strangely enough. Don't understand that at all.

The next day, I got up early, went into college and managed to stay for 3 hours without a problem. Don't understand that either. In the evening I had friends round for a clothes swap party. I still had this horrible headache in the background though. I had done some RT on it, but was just getting a 'stop going on the computer' message which I had taken notice of and had only briefly checked emails and surfed for 15 minutes.

On Wednesday, I had a lie in and felt ok at first. When I turned the computer on, I felt the headache still there, so decided to keep off the computer again. I had a chilled day and did RT on the headache. I wasn't getting a very strong message, but I did feel like I wanted to have a relaxing bath. I did that and whilst I was in the bath, I connected with bodymind and was reminded that I really benefit from having hands-on relaxation stuff, like shiatsu and massages. After my bath I immediately contacted the college beauty salon and booked a massage for this morning and a facial for next week. I'm going to do this regularly, probably every fortnight, which is part of my RT.

On Wednesday evening I wanted to go to belly dancing, but was worried about the symptoms I was having. Headmind was going, "what if your symptoms have changed and this is a sign that if you over-do it, you'll relapse?!" I phoned my friend who is also doing RT and she helped me get over the fear and go with what bodymind wanted to do. I went to the class and I really enjoyed it. Once I was there, the fear had completely gone and I didn't feel the need to hold back.

The next day, I felt great. Much better than I have felt for about 7-10 days. I feel really relieved, I have my energy back and feel back on track with the RT too.

I do feel as if my symptoms are changing, which is quite unnerving. I am so used to my particular symptoms, how they occur and how they feel - it is not a nice place to be, but it is a safe place to be. This is a challenge because I feel as if I am no longer anchored and anything can happen.

Also, I think focusing on symptoms so much can have a 'can't see the wood for the trees' effect. I have become so aware of my symptoms that I have forgot to notice how drastic the improvements have been. In a week where I am experiencing my symptoms at an intense level, I am still able to go to college, see my friends and my boyfriend, go swimming and drive. Having the symptoms does hold me back. They affect my emotional energy and they affect my vibrancy, but they are not limiting my life in the way that they were before RT.

I am curious to see what happens in the next 2 weeks, now my symproms have subsided...

lost the faith...for a minute

2005-09-26T09:51:00.000+01:00

The last few days have been a bit odd. Not difficult exactly, but my mental energy has been flagging a bit. I had expected it to pop back up again over the weekend, but it didn't.

I went to Tesco yesterday and found it really difficult. I could feel that panic that you get when you think that you're not going to be able to manage whatever it is you are doing. I just kept telling myself, it's fine, I don't need to rush, just do it in my own time. I got back to my car and did my RT and sat quietly before driving back home.

When I got home it kind of came to me about the whole chemical memory thing. When I first got ill, I can remember being in Tesco, pushing a trolley round, thinking that I was going to collapse. I remember feeling panicky then. I wonder if it was because I was pusing a trolley (a small one)? I usually take a basket and only get one or 2 items and do my big shop on the internet.

Anyway, I got home and instead of resting (pacing), I changed my activity (RT) to something that I like doing, then went over to my boyfriends house. I was still a bit mentally fatigued, but it wasn't intense like it was in the shop and the panicky feeling had gone.

Lat night I was questioning the RT and whether it was working or not. I don't seem to be getting the massive increase that I had when I first started it, but like I mentioned before, this hasn't been the best month. I've also added 2 new things to my weekly programme recently (college and belly dancing), so maybe I'm misjudging my energy and have more than I think.

Anyway, this is all headmind stuff. When I sit quietly, allow my attention to go to my body, feel the sensation of weight in my body and the sensation of my body against the sofa and my feet on the floor, bodymind is quiet. That is the most important thing for me to remember, if bodymind is happy, then the rest is just the chatterbox, headmind. I still think this is the way forward for me.

Correspondence with John Eaton about the high price of RT

2005-09-24T12:51:00.000+01:00

Hi John Eaton

I have been having RT with Georgiana Nye in Bristol since July of this year. My health has improved significantly over the past 3 months as a direct result of RT. For me, a big part of it's success has been Georgiana's approach as she is a fantastic therapist and a lovely warm, encouraging person. I'm really impressed with her and RT.

I do however, have one complaint to make on behalf of lots of people that I know with ME. You probably know what I am going to say already, but it is to do with the price. I understand that there are cost implications in delivering the training, supervising the therapists etc, but I really do believe that you are shooting yourself in the foot with pricing so high. I know from the community of PWME of which I am part, that many of them are put off by the price for 2 particular reasons.

The first is that they simply cannot afford to see a therapist twice a month at £80 a go, even if it does then extend to 3 weeks, 4 weeks etc. Most of the people I know with ME are unable to work, so where can they get the money from? I decided to get an overdraft, which is not ideal.

The second reason is that the price, which is much higher than pretty much any other type of therapy, feeds people's uncertainties about the genuineness of your organisation. Lots of people think that it is a 'rip off' or that you are simply exploiting vulnerable people. I belong to a local forum with about 50 members and I would say the majority of them don't trust you and I know from discussions that the price has a lot to do with that. I really feel that you are doing
yourself a disservice.

From my personal experience, I rate RT and I rate the therapist that I saw. I have kept a blog of my RT experiences so that others can benefit from my experience and I know that many people are watching to see what happens to me. What would be really great now, is if you could acknowledge that the price is prohibitive and lower it so that people don't fret about being conned out of money that they do not have. I'm not writing this to try and get my sessions cheaper as I don't plan to have any more. I am almost at the point of being discharged after 3 sessions, so would consider RT to have been successful for me.

I would appreciate a personal reply from you. I can let people on my forum know if you are willing to shift on price, which may mean that others take it up, where they may not have before.

I look forward to your response.

Miss B

-----------------------------

Dear Miss B

First of all - congratulations on your recovery. I am always touched when I hear of yet another person getting their health and their life back with the help of RT.

Please also allow me to come to the point:

I do not actually agree that our fees are expensive given that we are not government-funded. Private Doctors and Psychiatrists - who have nothing to offer people with CFS - will charge upwards of £150 per hour. Cognitive-Behavioural Therapists (who claim to have a remedy for CFS but don't) will charge £80 per hour or more - and the minimum length of
treatment is usually One year!

The fact that a therapist charges £80 per hour does not mean that she earns that amount. She will also need to pay rentals, insurance, registration fees, travel and other expenses. For each session she can also expect to do a further 30-45 minutes in Administration and Supervision.

For me, the real argument here is about government funding. So far the NHS has not yet recognised RT as treatment of choice for CFS. When it does many patients will be able to receive RT free of charge. While we are working extremely hard (unpaid of course!) to set up clinical trials and set up a dialogue with NHS decision-makers, they remain a slow-moving,
conservative and medically-biased institution. It may take years before we can acquire funding. Perhaps members of your Forum should write to their MP and demand that steps are taken to speed up this process?

In the meantime we are aware that many sufferers are on benefits or on low-incomes. Mindful of that fact, we ask all our therapists to reserve two places on their list for low-fee patients. Provided that the client is able to prove that they are on benefits the therapist will reduce the fee to £50 per hour if they have places. Please do be advised, however, that there is
usually a waiting list for these places.

I hope this answers your question fairly and that you can see that our fees are not unreasonable. Please feel free to quote this email to your colleagues.

With Best wishes

Dr John Eaton PhD
Director
Reverse Therapy UK Ltd
www.reversetherapy.com
--------------------------------------
Hi John

Thanks for your reply. I would say that it terms of my recovery, I don't consider myself to have my life back yet, but I'm on the way.

In response the rest of your reply, I'm aware that the £80 goes to cover lots of administrative costs, but I think we will have to agree to disagree on this because despite your reasonings, I still think the price is too high. I understand that there is a gap between what us people on the ground floor need and what people offering services can supply in terms of funding.

I agree that RT should be provided on the NHS, particularly as when I personally visited our local CFS/ME clinic in Bristol, there wasn't anything on offer for me as CBT and graded exercise where not deemed appropriate. I do not however, wish to get involved in campaigning or the political aspects of all this, because I know from previous experience that it frustrates me and drains the energy that I have. I also use a lot of my energy being involved in the local group. Maybe when I have energy to spare, I might be more willing, but I need everything I have for my recovery right now.

I will let people on the Bristol forum know that there are low-fee places available on a waiting list basis, which is at least a step in right direction from a pwme's perspective.

Thanks for responding and good luck with all the work. I really hope that the gatekeepers of the NHS can eventually judge RT on its outcomes rather than looking for research to prove that it works. If my story will contribute to that in any way, you are more than welcome to use it (littlemissreverse.blogspot.com).

Miss B
-----------------------------------

Thanks Miss B

Well, I do hope you get your life back as well, very soon.

Kind regards JOHN

Best wishes

Dr John Eaton PhD
Director
Reverse Therapy UK Ltd

Mental fatigue

2005-09-23T11:38:00.000+01:00

I've been waiting to see if I had a backlash from going swimming last friday. I was a bit tired on Saturday, emotional on Sunday and tired and emotional on Monday but that's linked to my new found PMS and getting up early.

I've been waiting for the crash and I don't think it's going to come now. Don't get me wrong, I've had some ME symptoms over the last 6 days, but it seems to have been mostly mental fatigue and the things that go with that such as tension in my neck, headaches and tired, puffy eyes. I have still been able to be active and have done quite a lot, I just haven't had the mental stamina to enable me to keep going. This is a new thing for me. Physical activity and mental activity used to trigger flare ups and bad days, but it seems to have switched since doing RT to mostly mental activity.

I have been driving a fair bit and using the computer a lot too and these are the things that I've been having trouble with whilst I've had my period.

I was talking to my boyfriend last night and he said that he didn't think I'd had a good month and had been tired quite a lot. I have been tired quite a lot and I have been fatigued too. From the outside I don't think there appears to be much difference between seeming tired and seeming fatigued, but to me, its a major difference. I don't mind feeling tired, its' quite nice and I just feel relaxed and sleepy. Being physically and mentally fatigued is a tense state, it interferes with my sleep, stops me from doing things and is not pleasant. I'm obviously going to feel tired as I increase my activity because my stamina and tolerance need to be built up.

Even though it hasn't been the best month so far, I have still increased my activity on last month. I'm hoping this next month will prove to be a bit easier.

John Eaton's RT web link and low fees

2005-09-22T11:03:00.000+01:00

Just discovered that the link to the John Eaton Reverse Therapy site was not working. Have corrected that now, so it works.

Also just discovered from emails with John Eaton that they do offer a restricted number of "low-fee" places to people who are on benefits. There may be a waiting list for these places. They cost £50 per session.

jobsworth rant!

2005-09-19T20:47:00.000+01:00

This is just a rant, not particularly relevant to RT, but I'm pissed off and want other people to understand how difficult having this illness is, even when you are getting well.

After my tutorial today, I realised that if I went and rested somewhere quiet for half an hour, I might be able to manage the workshop in the afternoon for an hour. I went to the library and found the 'quiet' area, tucked away in a corner where hardly anybody could see me and sat at a table with my head on my arms for a rest.

About 10 to 15 minutes later, a librarian came round and told me in a very abrupt manner, 'You can't sleep there! You'll have to go somewhere else'. I said, ' well can you find out from disability where I can rest, because I am disabled and I need to rest inbetween lectures'. She said, 'I'll get someone down to see you'. She went to get someone down and then came back and told me that the rules apply to all students and that if I was disabled I should go to disabilty and tell them what I need.

I just get so frustrated sometimes. I didn't plan this. I didn't even realise until 12 that I had enough energy to stay. I didn't know that I wasn't allowed to rest my head on my arms in the library and if I had known that it would cause such a stink, I would have gone straight to disability support anyway.

So someone came down and it was the lovely Beks who always looks after me. She took me up in the lift to a quiet room and on the way I just got really upset about the whole thing, which ended up using up more energy.

I was just trying to meet my immediate needs but because you don't fit the norm, you face barriers all the way. I know it's not a major injustice, but sometimes you don't have the energy to challenge and having a rather abrupt jobsworth being quite unsympathetic just makes it harder. If she had spoken to me as if I mattered it may have made all the difference.

Anyway, I blame the headache on her!

ooh my head hurts

2005-09-19T20:15:00.000+01:00

In my last post I mentioned that I went belly dancing. By the Friday, I felt fine and my aches had reduced a lot, so I went swimming and went to bed at about 11pm.

On Saturday I woke up at 12.30pm (13 and a half hrs sleep!) feeling a bit tired but OK. I know that my sleep going right up like this is a warning not to do to much more physical activity. I still decided to do part of my college assignment though, which involved going out and taking photographs. That went fine and I felt good until about 6pm, when my energy really dropped. I felt tired though, not fatigued and just decided to have a very chilled night at home.

Now, it is that time of the month again and wouldn't you just believe it, the same old pattern. I woke up on Sunday, suddenly having doubts about my relationship and getting paranoid (this is becoming a regular, bi-monthly feature - ooh what shall I get anxious about next month?), so spoke to my man and we sorted it all out very quickly, like bodymind wanted me to. I also did some RT in the evening after going on the computer.

This morning I woke up at 6.30am. This is an ME flare up thing for me. I lay in bed until 8am then got up, got myself sorted and went into college. I was tired before I started, but managed the 2 hour tutorial. I realised at that point that although I felt absolutely shattered, my eyes were really puffy and my brain felt tired, that I could feel all these things on some more surface level but underneath I felt OK. It's really difficult to explain.

I know that these 'symptoms' are brought on by my period and this month is the first time I have felt them as symptoms of PMS separately from the ME. I didn't feel fatigued in my body and I didn't have the tension that runs across my shoulders, up my neck and across my scalp. The sleep thing is the ME, the rest of today I can put down to PMS. It's not been the best day (see my next post). it's not exactly what I wanted, as I don't want to have ME or PMS, but I think it is a step forward.

Actually, maybe I should mention that after the last one, I decided to start taking Agnus Castus, which is recommended for PMS. Also about a week ago, I decided to go belt and braces and bought some Milk Thistle too.

I still have some days to go, but if this is the severity of the flare up this month, then its not nearly as bad as before, even though I had a migraine style headache earlier and had to go to bed until the paracetemol kicked in. Can't be too bad if I'm able to write this, but maybe I shouldn't push my luck!

Confusing

2005-09-15T11:58:00.000+01:00

I've had a bit of a confusing week. I had to get up at 7.30am on Monday to go to college (urgh!), which my body didn't like very much, so by about 12 I was quite tired. Thing is I stayed up til 2am on Saturday night aswell. I wasn't really sure if my tiredness felt like M.E. or normal tired, so I didn't do any RT. I was tired on Tuesday aswell, but again, wasn't sure.

I also had a mix up with my meds. I went to take my 20mg of Amitriptyline on Tuesday evening and discovered that they had reordered Temazepam by mistake. I only took Temazies in a very difficult patch last year and definitely should not get it on repeat prescription. Anyway, the thing is I had run out of Amitriptyline and tried to sleep without it, but no luck, so ended up having to take half of a Temazie. End result, woke up feeling groggy and a bit tired yesterday. Again, I didn't do any RT on this.

I'm not so certain of what is a symptom that requires RT action and what isn't at the moment. Maybe that is because my symptoms are becoming more subtle, maybe its because I'm not actually having symptoms or maybe its because I'm using my head and not bodymind to work it out. Not sure, bit confused.

Anyway, on a positive note, I tried something really adventurous last night. I went to a Belly Dancing class. I've been wanting to do this for a long time, but have been scared of over doing it as it can be quite energetic. The class was a beginners one so wasn't particularly strenuous (for a healthy person!). We just learned how to hold our arms, move our hips and shake our bums, but I worked up a sweat. Although my arms and legs ached and I got stitch it my side, I managed the class. My sleep last night was a bit disturbed, but I don't feel too bad today. My muscles ache just about everywhere, but its not unbearable, feels like a healthy ache and I am tired but not fatigued. fingers crossed that I don't get a backlash in a day or two.

Why I think it is the RT and not just good luck

2005-09-10T10:27:00.000+01:00

I thought I'd try and explain why I think it is the RT that is responsible for my improvements and not just the way things would have gone anyway.

I started my RT on July 18th.

Between January and July, I improved a lot. There have however been fundamental differences between the improvements I have made pre and post RT. That is what I will try to explain.

Before RT, I was gradually increasing my activity. I would do something for example, go for a walk and I would possibly get away with it the first time. I would increase this and at some point I would get a flare up. By that I mean the floppy fatigue, brain fog, disturbed sleep that comes on the next day or a couple of days later and takes days or weeks to shift. Now we all know that is one of the trade marks of M.E.

It happened with gardening too. I did gentle gardening, for 15 minutes, got away with it, went up to 20, that was OK, then 30, that was OK, then fogot to watch the time and did about 40 minutes. That time, I crashed and it took me 2 weeks to get back to normal. I have found it difficult to get the balance right when increasing and regularly go over my limit, just a bit and pay for it in days or weeks. That was before RT though.

Since doing RT, I have been increasing my activity, particularly the physical stuff. I have not had an M.E. flare up as a direct result of what I have done. I have had a couple of flare ups, one because of my period and one because of a bug, but not because I have walked too far, or swam too much.

I can still feel the remnanats of these symptoms, particularly at night. For example, yesterday I went for a swim after not swimming for a couple of weeks. I swam the same distance that I did last time. During the night I woke up and my head was saying, 'oh no, you overdid it!'. Flippin headmind! I thought I wasn't going to get back to sleep, which is what would have happened before. Anyway, the next thing I know its 9.30am. I can feel tension in my neck, but it doesn't feel like the tension I get in my neck which is a symptom. This just feels like I used the muscles across my shoulders, which I did because I swim breast stroke.

I think the key to this is constantly checking in with Bodymind. I regularly stop and do a quick scan and if I can't feel any symptoms, I continue. I also think that the reason why there has been a shift pre and post RT is because of the symptom message. I really feel that it is reprogramming my brain. Finally, if my bodymind says, 'I want to lie down and rest' that is what I do - I try not to push myself against bodymind, but I do push my body gently. I don't know if that makes sense, but I think you have to work out what are M.E. symptoms and what is just normal body reactions to increasing activity. Normal aches are OK to push gently, but symptoms are not.

Anyway, I just want to say that all this is just my personal experience and personal opinions. RT may not work or may work differently for others - I think you have to find a route that speaks to you. I'm just hoping to add to the available information that is out there on RT, because I couldn't find much.

Feedback from my therapist

2005-09-06T12:46:00.000+01:00

I contacted my therapist last week as I was having a rough ride and needed a bit of clarification. That was before I'd worked out the bug thing. Anyway, my therapist gave me some tips, so this is what she said in relation to my flare up:

*Have you, looked at it more long-term? ie what turn generally has your life taken in the past few days?

*Have you been able to keep balance, variety and enjoyment going, or has there been a shift away?

*Are there concerns, that have been creeping up on you?

*Is there an element of conflict looming in the future, or around now that you have not dealt with?

*Are there any worries (long-term or short-term) that are lurking around?

A general scan around might give you some clues that would indicate a response from you. Does your symptom message seem relevant in these present circumstances?

I did the RT, looking at it using these ideas and came up with some very loose ideas, but I don't think they came from bodymind as I didn't get the physical sensation that I get with strong bodymind communications.

The things I came up with were:

I'm starting back to college next week (possible subconscious anxiety, but I'm not consciously aware of it).
Things have been out of balance because of my symptoms, not the other way round, as they were completely out of the blue.
The little niggle I mentioned in a previous post has been dealt with, so probably not that.
Can't feel any long term worries at the moment.
Not aware of any conflict at the moment.

I did a general scan, by sitting very quietly, focusing on my body and asking it if there was anything that I needed to look at and I didn't get anything.

I have 3 symptom messages and I have found one of them to fit each time I need to use the card, so I think my symptom messages are OK. Actually, whilst I was just writing that, I just got a flicker from bodymind, so maybe I need to look at my symptom messages after all. Strange old business this!

OK, that is useful, I think I need to find a symptom message to fit the hangover/groggy/feeling rough symptoms. The ones that are just there when you wake up.

Detective Miss Bristol, signing off.

bug

2005-09-01T16:32:00.000+01:00

Just spoke to my friend Sarah, who has been ill over the weekend with a stomach bug. I saw her on Wednesday last week, before I had my flare up. My flare up began with diarrhoea and then I felt wobbly, fatigued and had a craggy headache for few days, just like Sarah!

I kind of wondered if it was a bug but it didn't develop so thought it must be the M.E. Now I think my body was fighting it off and that's why I felt so horrible. It's a bit wierd when your body starts to react normally to things - think it's a good sign.

That also explains why the RT didn't seem to fit and why, when I actually remembered to do it, bodymind was very quiet. It's really hard not to get into analysing it all and that is obviously what I do. Must remember to go with the feelings - the gut feelings (hee hee!).

rough week

2005-08-30T19:23:00.000+01:00

I've had a bit of a rough week. I'm not sure what happened (did nothing out of the ordinary), but on Thursday last week my body decided to reject the food I had put in it, then I had a low blood sugar wobble, then I couldn't sleep and on Friday felt really horrible.

It didn't feel like M.E. so I didn't do any RT, but on Saturday it did feel like M.E. but I still didn't do any RT. I wasn't sure how to apply it. You apply the RT when you feel the symptoms come on, but in this case I just woke up feeling shit and got less shit as the day went on. I'm unsure how to do RT on something that feels like a hangover and just lingers around, might email Georgiana about that.

Yesterday after doing some photography for a couple of hours, I got my more recognisable M.E. symptoms, so did RT on them. Body mind not giving me anything specific to act on, but I kind of thought that just meant stop doing what I was doing when the symptoms came on (using the computer). Symptoms eased off.

Felt not wonderful this morning, but picked up in the afternoon. I find the heat a real challenge when I'm not at my best and spent the day with a bright red sweaty face. Maybe I should have done RT on that.

It's easy to do RT on the symptoms that I get when I've been doing something for a bit too long. You just stop what you are doing, get your card out and focus on your symptom. Other things like the low blood sugar, the insomnia, the 'hangover' and dodgy thermostat are a bit different. I don't get these sympoms on a day-to-day basis now, so I kind of forgot to class them as symptoms that RT can work on and just didn't think to do it.

Maybe if I did some RT on my horrendous memory, I could remember to do RT all of my symptoms.

Anyway, the path is not smooth...

Every month...

2005-08-22T21:16:00.000+01:00

Just realized (Doh!) after checking in my diary that my bad M.E. days (since May) correspond with something a little more fundamental and a little more regular. Regular as in once-a-month! Now that I don't feel shitty all the time and actually feel well a lot of the time, I'm getting PMS symptoms again. They feel just like M.E. or maybe it just makes my M.E. flare up. So that's probably why I couldn't feel what bodymind was telling me, because 'body' was just doing what it does. Phew.

hello fatigue my old friend

2005-08-19T14:38:00.000+01:00

I'd just been thinking that I'm kind of getting the hang of this RT malarky when I get my old favourite symptom 'fatigue' again. I'm trying not to be down hearted about this, as my symptoms are my friends (cringe!) and I obviously need a nudge to put me back on track. BTW I went 18 days without experiencing fatigue, so not a bad start to RT really.

Hmm...in pacing terms I can't think what exactly might have casued it apart from a cumulative effect from all the things I've done over the last few weeks - that happens sometimes. There's nothing big I've done since swimming a week ago.

Now in RT terms, you don't use your heaad to try and work it out, you just get into your body, feel very aware of it and try to feel what bodymind is trying to tell you. I couldn't hear what bodymind was trying to tell me, so I did the body focusing thing that Georgiana did with me about my driving and computer symptoms. It's kind of like your bodymind does a scan to find a lost file and then ping, you get a picture in your head. Anyway, I couldn't find the lost file when I did that. I have, however had something on my mind, not a big thing, just a niggle, but it's been on my mind when I've been falling asleep the last 2 nights. I know from the last time I had a really bad day, I had terrible fatigue, felt awful and it corresponded with me having something big on my mind. So I'm kind of thinking it might be that. I don't know though as I don't get the 'whoomph' feeling in my gut when I do the body focus thing and I think I may have been using my headmind to work that one out. Anyway, its worth expressing these thoughts to the person concerned and seeing what happens.

The niggle isn't something that I would have immediately acted on in the past. To me its just one of those fleeting 'I want' thoughts that you always get from time to time and sometimes turn into big niggles that you might then act on. But then maybe that is why I have got M.E. because these fleeting thoughts need to be listened to and often acted upon.

2nd session

2005-08-16T21:04:00.000+01:00

I had my second session with Georgiana today. I told her about the improvements that I have noticed, specifically about the fact that my body seems to have ceased to give me symptoms for physical activity. I told her about going swimming and actually pushing myself a little bit, working my body just for a couple of lengths and only experiencing a relaxed tiredness over the next couple of days (not the M.E. tiredness that I'm so familiar with). I was a bit uncertain about what was going on as I was sure that it would have just tipped me over into 'overdoneit' after everything else I've been doing lately...but it didn't and I just did what a healthy person would have done - had a chilled couple of days then carried on where I left off. Obviously this is a bit of a shock and it will be a little while before I get my confidence in this new found physical ability.

I explained that now my sticking points were driving, using the computer and conflict. I haven't had any conflict to deal with over the last month so we focused on the other 2. She asked me to close my eyes, to feel my body, to feel my centre of gravity drop and to be aware of my feet on the floor then asked me to go back to a time when I had been driving on the way to swimming (which is the last time I had the symptom from driving). Immediately I went back to a time when I was first ill and had over done it by driving half way across town after going swimming and my brain shut down on the drive home, being firstly very dangerous and secondly very scary. My body mind was scared.

Again with the computer, I focused on my body and went back to when I first got ill and was working. I remember sitting in front of the computer litterally using all my energy to keep myself upright and feeling scared that my body was doing so many wierd things. I was scared that I was going mad or that I had a brain tumor. My bodymind was scared.

From these examples she came up with a message for me which was very simple but was about listening to ALL of my symptoms and giving them the attention they deserve.

She said that it sounded like I had some chemical memories stored in my body from these events in the past that were originally to protect me, but they were no longer needed. I just need to let my bodymind know that I am listening and paying attention to the symptoms (by doing the RT) and eventually the headmind and the bodymind will come into alignment and the symptoms will go away. I have complete faith that this will happen as I have just realised in the last few days that my most troublesome symptom which has been fatigue for a very long time now has not surfaced in my symptom journal since 30th July, that's 2 weeks at the moment (and after a huge step up in my physical activity). My main symptoms now are tension in my neck and my shoulders and a tight head.

Georgiana said that I probably need just one more session, which I have in my diary for 5 weeks time. That will mean I will have spent £240 on RT - an absolute bargain! I don't think I will be completely 'cured' in 5 weeks time, there's a lot of building up stamina and fitness to do and getting used to being able to 'do' things which will take a while. I do think that in 5 weeks time I will have all the tools and the confidence in RT to see this thing through to my fullest health, whatever that may be.

Bizzarre

2005-08-12T08:49:00.000+01:00

Two months ago on 14th June, my boyfriend took me to Sand Bay near Weston. We walked on the beach, had lunch in Grandma's cafe and then went to a pub for a game of pool. I was out of the house for 6 hours. It was the first time I had been out of Bristol in 15 months. By the time I got home I had tension in my neck, a headache and puffy eyes, a foggy brain and felt knackered, which are my initial M.E. symptoms. The next day I was really tired all day (m.e. tired), my sleep was disturbed and the day after that I was still a bit tired too.

Yesterday on 11th August I got up at 8.30, feeling refreshed from sleep had my breakfast and got ready for the day. I drove to Fishponds to do some banking, then my friend came over and I drove into town and did a bit of shopping. We then had a coffee (with caffeine - body now reacting normally to it) and sat in the sun. Then we went to the Ostrich pub and sat in the sun for another hour or so eating a baguette and having a shandy (never would have had alcohol in the day time or even at all a few months ago) and a long chat. Then I went to whiteladies rd to pick up some photographs. After that I went swimming. I came home had a shower and then some tea before my boyfriend came over to take me to the pub. Was a bit tired in the pub (but wasn't certain if it was M.E. tired or normal tired as did have tension in neck from swimming) so was home by 10ish and then went to bed.

OK, that might not sound like a hectic day to a healthy person, but to me, its pretty unbelievable. I woke up this morning after a good nights sleep and I feel fine, a little bit groggy, but I remember feeling like this after I had done lots when I was well. It's quite bizzarre. I think that I can honestly now say that the RT is having an effect as I have never experienced this kind of ability and wellness since I became ill 3-4 years ago.

I know it doesn't really make sense, I'm still a bit wierded out by the whole thing and still think it sounds bonkers. BUT, since I've been using the message card, my symptoms happen less and less and they are less intense, my energy and stamina have drastically increased and my fear of making myself worse has virtually gone. Make of it what you will, but I don't think I'm going to need many sessions and I really believe that I'm on the way out of this illness. The improvements that I've gained in just the last month are well worth the £80 I've spent so far.

Pink Wig

2005-08-10T08:25:00.000+01:00

About a month to six weeks ago, I became incredibly frustrated with my M.E. I was fed up of being ill and just wanted to be well again. After having a bad weekend, something inside me (bodymind?) was saying 'just get on with it!' I decided that I needed to 'do' more. I suppose I have kind of got used to having limitations and presume that I still have all the old ones when actually I have improved quite a lot this year.

Anyway, my plan was to go to visit a friend on the Isle of Wight and to go to a music festival (very scary!) I did the Isle of Wight thing a few weeks back and managed it fine.

This weekend just gone I went to the music festival. Now something very interesting happened whilst I was there. Well actually nothing happened in M.E. terms. I walked quite a lot, sat around listening to music, hung out with people I know really well and some that I didn't know at all (has exhausted me in the past). I even danced a little bit! I had bad sleep on the first 2 nights because the music didn't end until 2am, but I didn't get any M.E. symptoms. I was knackered, but it was a normal tired, not an M.E. tired and my legs really ached, but again it wasn't an M.E. ache it was a normal healthy used-my-legs ache By the third day I was able to sleep and my energy increased. It increased on the fourth day too.

From Thursday to Monday I only had to use my message card once. When that happened I got up and left the people that I was sitting with and went for a wander around the stalls. I went in the bubble shop, some clothes stalls and a fairy stall where I tried on lots of wigs and settled on a very over the top long, bright pink wig. I went back to my friends, put my wig on and didn't have any more symptoms until Tuesday after I had returned home and had done some driving and going on the computer.

What I have deduced from all this....

I'm going to change my attitude about my M.E. from 'oh I'll have to be careful about that' to 'I can do that' if I get symptoms, that is good as it is just nudging me back on track if I drift off it,

I love and need to spend lots more time outside (I do spend time outside, but I think I need to do more of this),

I need to indulge myself in 'play' and by that I mean anything that feeds my passions and my creativity (which I have been doing anyway, but I think I need a lot more of it)

Less time on computer!

Increase???

2005-07-27T22:05:00.000+01:00

Have just spent 9 hours with my boyfriend. Must admit, didn't 'do' much, watched a DVD, had lunch, lounged, chatted, listened to music, had tea, but still it's the longest amount of time we've spent together since I met him in January.

Hmm, is this the increase that RT talks about? It's difficult to know isn't it!

Am keeping a diary so hopefully will be able to see....

help yourself

2005-07-25T18:40:00.002+01:00

At my first session, my therapist said that I had a good understanding of RT and that I was already doing some of it.

I tried to do as much preparation as I could and I think that if you can do that, you are giving yourself a head start and also saving yourself some money!

This is what I did:

Read the Mickel RT book (download from the Mickel RT site)
Read the John Eaton book (bought from Amazon)
Searched all the M.E. websites and message boards (that I know of) for any discussions on RT
Read Adam Del-Monte's blog (www.reversetherapy.blogspot.com)
Discussed RT on the Bristol M.E. groups message board with others who are having the therapy and those who aren't
Practised keeping a symptom journal
Practised listening to my bodymind

All of the above helped. The things that helped me understand the process the most were John Eaton's book and Adams Blog. The thing that has helped have a head start is just trying to do it before I started my therapy.

It's quite an unusual concept to get your head around, especially when you are so used to pacing. I have spent the last 3 years trying NOT to have symptoms, but now I need my symptoms so that I can do my RT. Its a strange place to be in, but I trust my instincts and will still be using pacing too, as I only want to feel my symptoms gently and not have a relapse.

My body mind

2005-07-25T18:40:00.001+01:00

It's quite difficult to get a grasp on what 'body mind' is, but I think I've kind of got my head around it now.

For me, it's my inner voice that comes from my stomach area. I sometimes get a physical sensation in my belly when bodymind it trying to tell me something. It's not like wind or the feeling of your food being digested, but like the feeling you get when you have butterflys, or experience disappointment and feel it in your gut.

Sometimes is hard to hear bodymind because its just not speaking to me at that time. It's not so much about thinking, but about feeling. Instead of trying to work it out in my head, I try to switch the head off and go with my gut feeling.

An example is: I went for a walk in the park, got tired and needed to sit down. I found a bench and sat on it. Inside me, there was a kind of child saying, 'I want to lie on the grass under the tree', so I took that to be my bodymind and just did it.

I don't know if you are supposed to feel an immediate improvement in energy or whether this is just retraining your hypothalamus, but I'm happy to go along with it.

1st Session

2005-07-25T18:40:00.000+01:00

I had my first session last week. I like my therapist, she's great, very positive and truly believes that this will help me.

I decided to travel by bus to her house, which was quite a journey in itself, but I managed it.

She gave me my RT 'training' so to speak, explaining the principles behind it. She thought that I had a good grasp on the concept and I tried to give her examples of how I had been putting into practice what I already understood.

We discussed how my M.E. had come into being, discussing how long I've had it, symptoms etc. She then asked me to close my eyes and think back to what was happening for me at the time my first symptoms arose. I thought back to January 2001 when I first had the flu that 'caused' my M.E. At this point, a little voice inside me was saying, 'but what about the thing that happened before that' and then, 'no before that' until I eventually came to a point where my bodymind seemed to have gone quiet. I went back to May 1996.

I'd been in a relationship that was really bad for me. I lost myself in it and it ended in a traumatic way for me at the same time as I was made redundant from my job. It took me a long time to get over this and I've always known that it had a big impact on my life. What I didn't realise was the connection between then and now.

I explained to Georgiana (my therapist) how I had moved to Bristol in 1999, started a new life and kind of gone into overdrive. I was working hard, playing hard and having the time of my life, with hardly any down time. I was also drinking heavily and using recreational drugs. Georgiana said it was then that my hypothalamus had kicked off and was giving lots of (false) energy.

It really upset me hearing this and I felt really terrible about what I have done to myself. I also felt a bit relieved because now I understand how I got M.E and feel that I can sort the things out that put me in this place. I always had a kind of gut feeling that my M.E. didn't start with the flu in 2001, but couldn't see how it could have started any other way. I can see it now.

finding out more about RT

2005-05-01T18:02:00.000+01:00

When I heard about Reverse Therapy (RT), I was immediately intigued and curious, so I looked on Google, on some message boards, on the MEA website as well as quizzing people to see if anybody had heard of it.

I found quite a range of attitudes: 'its just CBT, dressed up as something else' and 'its just a con - exploitation of vulnerable people'. I also read some posts by people on the Bristol ME group message board, talking about how their therapy is going - the jury is still out!

I downloaded the Mickle RT book and bought the John Eaton RT book and read both with interest. I understood the main jist of it to be about listening to what your BODY is telling you, rather than your MIND. So with all my doubts and cynicism set aside (mind stuff), I decided to go with my gut feeling (body stuff) and arrange an appointment.

I've gone with the John Eaton company, purely for convenience as they have a therapist in Bristol. I don't think I could have made a decision based on which company was 'best' as they seemed to be saying the same thing.

I have started a symptom journal, which is one of the tools they use. Don't know if it's a good idea to have started this before I begin the therapy, as I might not be doing it right, but I want to hit the ground running (ha!). It has actually made me take notice of things that I would have overlooked before or just ignored, like the twitch in my eye. It has also made me take notice of what action I take when I get the symptom or emotion and also what I am doing at the time it occurs.

At this point it might be a good place to point out that I have already improved this year, beyond my expectations. This may be down to Homeopathy or my mates reckon it's down to having a lovely boyfriend at the moment. Maybe the journal is helping already too. I don't know. My recovery rate has increased anyway, from incredibly, painfully slow, where I could only notice slight improvements from month to month, to just slow where I can notice improvements every couple of weeks.

I have my first appointment in the middle of July with a therapist who has been a counsellor for AfME for several years. This gave me a certain confidence as I have received counselling through AfME and thought it was excellent.

So...watch this space...

My Story

2005-04-27T00:03:00.000+01:00

So how did I come to have ME? Like many people, I had flu in February 2001 and have never felt quite the same. In that year I remember having 'bouts' of low energy, my blood sugar was a bit dodgy and when I needed to eat, I needed to eat NOW. I started to have killer hangovers and sometimes I had to go to bed for an hour when I got home from work. Apart from that, I carried on as normal and by about October, these bouts of low energy seemed to have gone away.

In December 2001, I moved house, changed job and started a new relationship. Things were looking great and I was very happy. By February the low energy had returned and I felt quite rough, kind of hungover and fluey. I had some time off work, improved, went back, then a few weeks later, had to have time off again and again.

During this time, I noticed that I felt really unfit. Had given up my yoga class, was struggling with cycling to work and suddenly found walking up stairs and hills really difficult. I had palpitations, became really intollerant to caffeine and had a constant headache. After eating my lunch, I would feel as if I couldn't keep my eyes open. The strangest and most disturbing thing was that I would go to say one word and a completely different word would come out. I mumbled too. This was quite scary.

Over this period, I saw 2 doctors who carried out the usual tests (Thyroid Function, Liver Function, Diabetes, Anaemia, etc) all came back negative. One doctor said it might be my 'hormones' or Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. The next doctor asked if I was depressed, which I wasn't and was told that I must be, but didn't know it (I wanted to hit him!). I looked on the internet to find out more about CFS and only had a couple of the major symptoms so was convinced that I had NOT got this terrible illness.

The symptoms persisted, terrible headaches, fatigue that just didn't tie in with what I was doing, a feeling of poison running through my viens instead of blood etc etc. I eventually saw a doctor that I trusted, who listened to what I had to say and then said that I had classic symptoms of CFS. I got signed off work for a couple of months in all. I seemed to improve a little and so tried to go back to work. That was a BIG mistake. I only went in for one hour on 3 consecutive days and that finished me off. I got signed off work again and then decided to resign as it was incredibly stressful. So I had given up work, my social life, all of my interests like yoga, cycling, singing in a choir, playing guitar, walking, dancing, photography, as well as caffiene, alcohol and pretty much everything else that I enjoyed. I still wasn't getting any better and just could not get my head around it! How could I STILL be overdoing it when I had given up everything?

I had a couple of counselling sessions through AfME, with a wonderful woman called Pierette Housden. In the second session it became aparent that I needed to be looked after and wasn't coping on my own. I decided to go to my parents in Birmingham for 3 weeks, which turned into 3 months. During this time, other symptoms started to emerge: unbearable sleep disturbances, sensitivity to noise, aches in muscles and muslce twitching, emotional mood swings, concentration and memory problems (I felt like I had Alzheimers), weakness and the persisting fatigue. I now had ME as defined by Ramsay. I basically sat in a chair and lay on a bed for 3 months with a walk to the shop once a week, which wiped me out for 3 days after, but I needed to do it for my sanity. I found it very difficult to bathe myself, wash my hair and dry myself and had to have an hours rest immediately after a bath. Showers were too difficult. I found it hard to cook, to walk up the stairs, to put socks on and anything that required more than about a minute of stamina. I started to take Amitriptyline to help with my sleep as it had become my most troublesome symptom which helped.

I found out about a book called 'Better Recovery from Viral illness' from Dodona Books, which became my bible and I'm sure was the key to my recovery. The penny finally dropped about what 'overdoing it meant'. Any increase in symptoms = overdoing it. It was as simple as that, but a really traumatic journey to discover it.

After 3 months I went back home and had another 2 months of being pretty much housebound before I felt stable enough to begin to increase my activity. First I increased activity around the house, with attempting small amounts of chores, e.g. clean the sink in the bathroom. I also started to increase my social activity as my tolerance was going up quite quickly. I could have a visitor twice a week for an hour and have a couple of telephone calls too. I continued my once a week walk to the shop and then began to increase the frequency as I recovered more quickly from it.

Since then I have made steady progress. I have become pretty adept at pacing and have adapted my lifestyle and my expectations to suit my current situation. I get my pleasures where I can and I'm happy with a little rather than a lot. I focus on my improvements compared to where I was and try not to compare myself now to how I was prior to my illness. I became albe to walk a bit more, go to a tai chi class and even start a course at college with lots of support from the Disability team.

I have tried changing my diet to an almost detox diet (didn't do much), shiatsu (helped me get from being very inactive to being able to do some activity), supplements (Vit C, Cod Liver Oil, Evening Primrose Oil, B vits, mineral complex), Serotone 5HTP, relaxation tapes. I have not had any problems with my digestive system and I do not get swollen glands or sinus problems during a flare up. My main symptoms in a flare up are sleep problems, mental and physical fatigue, concentration and memory problems and twitching muslces (not painful).

It was all going so well and then last year (2004) I had 3 big relapses. One was from overdoing it - I felt so well and got carried away! That one lasted 4 months. I didn't cope very well with that one, had to defer my college course, go back to basics and had to see Pierette for counselling again. The second was from moving house and the third was a virus on top of the second, so I was in relapse from June until the end of December. I coped much better with these 2 as I was confident that I would come through it. I did however, experience some really dark moods which scared me as I had never felt like that before.

This year (2005) has been a breeze compared to last year. I have become stable, I have rejoined my college course and I have had appointments at the Homeopathic Hospital and the CFS/ME clinic in Bristol. The CFS clinic assessed me and then decided that I was doing well, had enough strategies for coping and a positive attitude so felt that there was nothing further they could offer me. The homeopathic hospital prescibed a remedy called 'carsinosin' which after makin me feel awful for a few days, appears to be doing something. My energy is much more solid, my recovery rate has improved and my stamina has improved quite a lot.

So having exhausted all the treatments, remedies and therapies that I could without breaking the bank, I have decided to give Reverse Therapy a go. I found out about it through the webgroup that I run with a couple of other people in Bristol for PWME, as part of the Bristol ME group. As soon as I heard about it I couldn't stop thinking about it. It struck a chord with me and I think it may well help me. I'm not hoping for a miraculous recovery, but I'm just looking at it as a tool to speed things up a bit.

I'm doing this blog so that people who are interested in RT can read what I have experienced and decide for themselves whether it might help them.