Tag: hidden disability

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N:rem – The Beautiful Science Of Sleep

Sponsored Post

I have been given this product as part of a product review through the Chronic Illness Bloggers network. Although the product was a gift, all opinions in this review remain my own and I was in no way influenced by the company.

If someone had told me a couple of months ago that changing my mattress could alleviate some of my symptoms, I would have assumed I was having one of those ‘yoga and green tea’ conversations: you know the ones – where people with no understanding of your illness impart their unsolicited wisdom about the best way to ‘cure’ yourself.  However, in this case, what they told me would have been true.  I’ve known for a long time that a decent mattress is one of the keys to a decent night’s slumber, but sleeping on an N:rem mattress takes your nightly rest way beyond merely decent.

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Let’s talk About Stress, Baby…

Much as I hate to admit it, I’ve been feeling a little s******d of late (yes, the word makes me very uncomfortable).  Having a prolonged and confusing flare-up of my Endometriosis has led to me slipping into a strange and disconcerting existence where the Fibromyalgia doesn’t have to fight so hard to retain dominance.  The additional issue that my GP appears to believe that Fibromyalgia doesn’t need to be treated at all has left me having to figure out my own regimen without access to any kind of safety net or physical support network. Continue reading “Let’s talk About Stress, Baby…”

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Even Baby Steps Can Take You Somewhere

I’ve always hated to-do lists. Rather than being a gentle reminder of the tasks I had yet to complete, they loomed over me like a book of judgement: solid black and white evidence of my own befuddlement, poor will power or plain, old-fashioned laziness. It would never matter how many items that were crossed off as completed – any gaps made me feel as though I had allowed the day to go to waste, particularly if it was some of the items at the top of the list that had been left in fruition limbo. The troubling thing is that those feelings of failure and inadequacy were already prevalent before my health completely caved in… Continue reading “Even Baby Steps Can Take You Somewhere”

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The Sanctuary Of The Modern Day Zoetrope

It can be difficult, nigh on impossible even, for the chronically ill to find a real sense of peace.  On a daily basis, our bodies refuse to obey the most basic rules of human existence, while our appearances give no outward indication of why our lives can be so difficult.  We often exist in-between worlds: too able-bodied to be considered truly disabled, yet far too ill to participate in life the way we’re ‘supposed’ to.  Finding a place to escape the heavily polarised ‘pull’ of opinions that people are often all too willing to share could be considered to be an essential part of self-care.  Even with the various activities and hobbies that I love, the one thing whose absence sincerely affects my psychological wellbeing is going to the cinema. Without these periodic excursions into ‘otherness’, the emotional cracks start to become chasms – it is the sanctuary of the cinema that prevents me from falling in. Continue reading “The Sanctuary Of The Modern Day Zoetrope”

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Living My Life Slowly

I felt my energy ebbing away and knew that I was destined to experience yet another unproductive day. I’d had so many of those recently; and despite the fact that most people understand that the very substance of the term chronic means I will never fully recover, I still get asked if and when I will be ‘better’.

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Trust Your Gut..?

Fibromyalgia is a bit of a ‘catch all’ diagnosis. It’s often handed down when doctors don’t know (or do not have the incentive to discover) what’s causing the myriad symptoms that the patient is suffering with – and those symptoms are myriad; over 200 at the last count. Because of this complexity, finding the root cause or best treatment for each individual can be akin to searching for the proverbial needle in a haystack. Add to the mix the fact that Fibromyalgia loves company, and rarely travels without a companion illness, and it becomes clear that medicinal platitudes are rarely going to be helpful; it’s the person that has to be treated, not the illness. This is why some of the best allies are the ones who listen.

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A Broken Derby Doll

I am completely unashamed to say that I, like so many others, discovered the brutal and brilliant sport of Roller Derby through the Drew Barrymore movie ‘Whip It’. Even though it is a really technical sport with enough rules to make even the most ardent bureaucrat flinch, it still seemed to be the type of team sport that would suit the way my brain worked: gameplay travels in one direction and the very clearly marked boundaries make it quite difficult to find yourself accidentally offside.  There was, however, one small problem – my health was languishing at the bottom of a metaphorical toilet bowl. Continue reading “A Broken Derby Doll”

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A Mile In Our Shoes

Like a lot of people whose disabilities are invisible, casual ableism is not something that sits permanently on my radar: I generally don’t have to think about wheelchair ramps or the absence of verbal prompts on a city bus. What I do have to concerns myself with is someone shaving parmesan onto my gluten free penne at a restaurant (this actually happened) because they don’t realise that what they may see as a dietary choice is really something that is keeping me out of the hospital.  So when I first read a rather odd hit piece in a national newspaper last year, rubbishing a device that has huge potential for personalised health care, I didn’t understand at the time that the anger I was feeling towards the author was because she was clearly dismissing the experiences of so many of us whose bodies don’t run ‘like clockwork’. Continue reading “A Mile In Our Shoes”