Alexandra Barton has pulled together 50 Personal Stories of Recovery from CFS/ME to help inspire hope for recovery. This is a must have book for anyone recovering from CFS/ME or for friends or family of someone recovering from CFS/ME.
Be inspired by these amazing people’s determination to free themselves from the fatalities of fatigue and be informed about a wide range of treatments, tools and techniques that have worked for different individuals.
I must stay I was pretty surprised at the different experiences. There are still many things that are common recovery tools, such as diet and graded exercise, but you will also read about quite a range of approaches.
Now you can go ahead and purchase your own copy….
Or, you can go in the draw to win a personal copy by telling me in a few words below (during February) what is your reflection of 2011 and your vision for 2012. I find this helps me a little with my recovery because often we miss the slight improvements over the short term, but can get a better perspective looking across the year. Of course this is not always the case – some years are just not great at all and that is fine. Hope is what keeps me plugging on looking for the next improvement so thus a vision for the year ahead is also personally inspiring.
Here is my reflection and vision:
Well last year was a huge upward swing in my recovery. Early in the year was very debilitating with constant dizziness, fatigue, aches and pains, anxiety and emotional turmoil. This got steadily better over time and by the end of the year I was really starting to see that I could start to do much more with my days and not have to pay for it with days in bed afterwards. I’m really pretty stoked.
There were quite a few things that really helped this break through – firstly getting to a stage of hope for my recovery was the first, then taking baby steps to do a few things around the house, rest, do more, rest, finding my groove here and not putting too much pressure on myself – letting my body take the lead, but gently keeping some momentum, and boosting my nutrition with vitamin c, juices, good food etc etc – oh and I guess overall Pacing – handing over that this is my time to heal and not fighting it.
So my vision for this year is to get back to earning a few extra pennies – not going overboard, but definitely getting some part-time work. I’ve moved to the coast so I can swim in the ocean as much as possible and really make my health and wellbeing the ultimate focus of my life. So keeping up regular exercise without going overboard and continuing to develop my understand of food and nutrition. I see this as my reentry to life year so it has a pretty rosy color for me.
I’d love to hear your stories, I know its not always easy to find the positives, but if you can do a bit of soul searching to see what may have been positive for you in 2011 and what you would like to see for yourself in 2012…..I really look forward to the read.
Tags: Books Recovery Review Self-help Win
… And yes I am in Australia!!! 🙂
Hi Loretta,
My therapist was based in London which was absolutely fine, when I first spoke with him I was bedridden and couldn’t even feed myself so going to a clinic was not an option, so talking on the phone was the best for me. It’s been the most profound life changing experience of my life, it sounds dramatic I know but it’s true. In a year and a half I’ve gone from being totally bedridden told I was going to die from a GP to living my life the fullest I have ever done, all thanks to this therapy.
I’m happy to chat with u on skype about this if you wud like, I’m just trying to spread the word about this therapy as I hate the thought of anyone going through what I did and I now kno how relatively easy it can be healed. U can email me at fleurgollan@hotmail.com and we can organize to chat, only if you want, no pressure! Otherwise all the best in ur recovery 🙂
Hi! I’ve suffered from symptoms of CFS for 17 years and really ‘crashed’ in 2009, I spent months trying all sorts of treatments from iv vit c and minerals, heavy metal detoxification, meditation, scans, visits to every dr under the sun only to end up totally bed ridden to the point that I couldn’t feed myself, this went on for a year until my dad read Alex bartons book and found that only one treatment in the book came up more than once but 4 times was Mickel Therapy, by this stage as you can imagine I was totally desperate to get better and we booked in that wk for a consult over the phone, very long story cut short, I spoke with the therapist and with their guidance the next morning (with a lot of help from family and a wheelchair) I left my room for the first time in a year, from there I have not looked back, within 6 wks I was up and about the house. So last yr after recovering CFS I had to go through rehab and learn to walk again after being totally bed ridden for so long. So this yr I’ve started walking again, I’ve just started driving again and my aim is to go back to uni to study nutrition and hopefully get to London and do the training to become a Mickel Therapist so I can return the favor and help others with CFS! So it’s going to be a great year! Yaay!!
Thanks so much for your story Fleur, that is totally fantastic news. Well done, and I good luck with becoming a Mickel Therapist down the track. That is so cool that you’ve found something you would also like to do to help others. Enjoy the year being mobile again! Must feel fantastic. 🙂
Hi Fluer, are you in Australia as yes I’ve read lots about Mickel Therapy in recovery and it just keeps coming up. I’ve not been able to find someone here who does it. So brilliant to hear of your success. Only those of us who know what’s it’s like can feel your joy! Thanks heaps, Loretta
I won’t lie, 2011 was the worst year of my life: 8 funerals with 7 of them being relatives, more debilitating symptoms from my CFIDS & FM and my husband of almost eleven years leaving me with less than 24 hours notice. So my vision for 2012 is simple: to make it markedly better than 2011!
Wow Amy, you poor thing, that definitely sounds like the mother of all years and I am so sending you my best wishes for 2012. I’m sure you will need plenty of nurturing and self-love this year to bring yourself back to some sort of equilibrium. Thanks so much for sharing.
hi mel, so good to hear that this last year was an upward movement for you. my 2011 was a very mixed bag. i separated from my husband and moved to the sunshine coast late 2010. so last year was a difficult emotional year with a surprising amount of wellness. i took on the opportunities available to me here. i attended chenrezig the buddhist institute regularly, went to my scrabble club every tuesday and on thursday ran a scrabble club for students at my daughters school. this was the perfect amount of activity for me and doing what i loved. i chose this area because everything myself and my daughters visit is within 30 minutes drive.
my vision for this year is different and a little bit scary. i’ve started back at uni part time so i will really need to manage my time and energy very carfefully. school scrabble and weekly teachings at chenrezig are not on the schedule. i am trying to roster in 2 days per week in which i can be a couch potato and catch up on rest. have discovered that the uni has a respite room for people with a self managed illness to retreat to between classes. what a blessing, this respite room might make all the difference to keep me from burning out. What is still on my schedule and that i need to maintain is my yoga and meditation every morning before i get started on the rest of my day. good nutrition – trying to avoid the sugar urge for that quick energy burst. listening to my body. finding and nourishing my courage and resilience. my most urgent hope is that i can persevere with my studies while not burning out. and that if i cannot manage it i am able to let go of this dream to emerge back into the outside world with gentle self respect.
may we all have happiness and freedom from suffering.
That is great to hear Kez. I know of the Chenrezig centre and have always wanted to check it out. How did you find it?
It is such a toss up isn’t it, when you start the reemergence game. You want to start working etc, but some of the wellness activities do tend to drop off. It really is a trial of adding in, taking out and seeing how it goes.
How fantastic that your school has that refuge area for people to rest – how forward thinking is that! Love it.
Yes I’m also aiming to try and do meditation each day. It seems to be the first thing I’m willing to bypass and I know that is just shooting myself in the foot….so note to self on that one!
Love to touch base with you down the track and see how its all going. Best of luck with the studies. xx