Saturday 15 July 2017

My (ongoing) chronic illness journey and its experiments

Hey folks,

I am currently taking time away from work (only a small part of this was a matter of choice) to focus on getting in control of my chronic illness, and learning how my body works and how to help it heal.

As someone who feels very anxious about spending my time productively, this feels like a great deal. What am I going to be "producing" in that time away from "proper paid work"? How will I be contributing to the world?
It's aaaaaall the time that I would have otherwise spent working for a company earning money and contributing to the company's objectives that I'm now completely investing just in myself and my health, and I feel anxious about what "tangible results" I will have to show for it at the end.

Getting well would be the ideal of course. But fibromyalgia and CFS can be unpredictable and temperamental in how they insidiously (and sometimes obviously) run your life. I am cautiously optimistic but I know that this journey could take much much much longer than I currently think I have the patience and resilience for.
In any case, it is a journey, as I have been and am still completely committed to experimenting with different modalities of healing to figure out how to get in control of these conditions.

A friend suggested I should pick up my blog again and use it as a vehicle to help other people who may be in a similar situation to mine. This feels like a good way of "having something to show" for this "time off".

So here goes. I hope that I manage to keep it constructive and informative and that my varying emotional states (as I am struggling through my bad days and riding high on my good days) help make the reading interesting rather than pathetic, boring or grating.

Here are some of the modalities I have already been experimenting with (and still am for some) in parallel with conventional medicine:
- nutrition
- herbal medicine
- iridology (as a diagnostic tool)
- acupuncture
- Bowen technique
- osteopathy and physiotherapy
- Rolfing
- reiki
- art therapy
- counselling and psychotherapy
- hypnotherapy
- Bach flower therapy
- essential oils
- naturopathy

I will have a think about how I write about these, as after nearly a year and a half after I was hospitalised and first off work, I feel like I am connecting more dots and the picture is coming together more clearly.
I hope it will make sense to you and give you some useful insights if you or someone you love is going through a chronic illness as well or even simply feeling overwhelmed by stress in your / their life.

Please do comment with your experience or any comments / questions you may have, as this will make the information sharing more meaningful and relevant!