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    Created in 2008, Phoenix Rising is the largest and oldest forum dedicated to furthering the understanding of and finding treatments for complex chronic illnesses such as chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS), fibromyalgia (FM), long COVID, postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS), mast cell activation syndrome (MCAS), and allied diseases.

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new article 10 Ways I Prevent Chronic Fatigue Syndrome From Stealing My Mental Health

Jody

Senior Member
Messages
4,636
Location
Canada
meandthecat,

You and your family have really gotten hit hard.:eek:

I'm hoping that we'll see a shift in the way our illness is perceived. And then we'll see some cures of this physical disease of ours.
 

Jody

Senior Member
Messages
4,636
Location
Canada
Hi Jody,

You're becoming famous now, or even more so! The Sth Australian ME/CFS site liked your article too. I think EmpowHer should start paying their star a higher rate...:)

That is so cool!:D

Thanks for posting this Tony.:Retro smile:

I don't know if you saw this in another thread from last week or not, but they just did start paying me a higher rate.

I'm writing double the articles ( 8 on kidneys and urinary conditions, 6 on brain and nerves, and 2 on cfs) each month for double the money. Just started this week as a matter of fact.:Retro smile:
 

Sunday

Senior Member
Messages
733
Jody, I also want to add my thanks for your article. It comes at a really good time for me; I am making slow and labyrinthine progress, and each time I go into the pit again (where I am now) it's hard not to feel as if it's forever. I get to where I tell myself NOT to hope, because I don't want to go through the whole cycle of hope and despair. But I have a feeling you're right. Just because I'm sick doesn't mean I have to be cowardly.
 

Jody

Senior Member
Messages
4,636
Location
Canada
Jody, I also want to add my thanks for your article. It comes at a really good time for me; I am making slow and labyrinthine progress, and each time I go into the pit again (where I am now) it's hard not to feel as if it's forever. I get to where I tell myself NOT to hope, because I don't want to go through the whole cycle of hope and despair. But I have a feeling you're right. Just because I'm sick doesn't mean I have to be cowardly.

I gave up hope for years. Probably 5 years, no joke. I was afraid to hope, because when things kept going down the tube, it would mock me. Couldn't deal with the disappointment, of trying to reach Up, and getting dashed again.

Eventually I couldn't take the steady diet of despair. And I read somewhere -- I think it was either Dr. Bested or Dr. Myhill -- that the biochemistry, the chemicals running through us, from hope were completely different from the ones running through us from despair. I decided that even if there was no rational reason to hope -- ESPECIALLY when there was no reason to hope -- I needed those chemicals to heal me rather than ravage me further.

And I remembered earlier times when I had no reason to hope (about other matters in my life) when just the hope helped to turn things around. Changed how I thought, how I saw things, how I responded to things ... and gradually changed the path of my life. I didn't know if it would happen again. But I didn't have any other cards to play. So I went with hope.

I don't know if it was courage. Desperation can be a great motivator. And, ... hope feels better.
 

liverock

Senior Member
Messages
748
Location
UK
Jody is right,hope is essential in a disease like CFS because without it there is only despondency.
A sense of humour helps as well, thats why I collect jokes. :Retro smile:l

If somebody had told me when I first went down with CFS that I would still not be back to being 100% after 20 years then I would have despaired, but the constant hope and faith in God has kept me still hoping(and praying ),that some day there will be a complete answer to this horrible disease and future generations will not have to go through what we are going through.

So its good to hope ....and hope has a couple of cousins..... Faith and Love ....and when you mix em all together you've got the perfect combination, as St Paul so ably put it.

http://www.usccb.org/nab/bible/1corinthians/1corinthians13.htm

If I speak in human and angelic tongues but do not have love, I am a resounding gong or a clashing cymbal.

And if I have the gift of prophecy and comprehend all mysteries and all knowledge; if I have all faith so as to move mountains but do not have love, I am nothing.

If I give away everything I own, and if I hand my body over so that I may boast but do not have love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient, love is kind. It is not jealous, (love) is not pompous, it is not inflated,
it is not rude, it does not seek its own interests, it is not quick-tempered, it does not brood over injury,
it does not rejoice over wrongdoing but rejoices with the truth.

It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Love never fails. If there are prophecies, they will be brought to nothing; if tongues, they will cease; if knowledge, it will be brought to nothing.

For we know partially and we prophesy partially,

but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away.

When I was a child, I used to talk as a child, think as a child, reason as a child; when I became a man, I put aside childish things.

At present we see indistinctly, as in a mirror, but then face to face. At present I know partially; then I shall know fully, as I am fully known.

So faith, hope, love remain, these three; but the greatest of these is love.