• Mental Health

    Frustrated with illness and GPs

    Do you ever feel completely frustrated with illness and GPs and the ways that health professionals and government agencies react to it? If so, this is the blog post for you! I am diagnosed with a few overlapping illnesses that seem to cluster together like a group of gossiping old women! Ehlers Danlos Syndrome, Fibromyalgia and Chronic Fatigue or ME as it is known by doctors. Together these old women leave me mostly housebound, exhausted, unable to clean my home or do my hobbies as much as I would like. They took away my ability to work in my twenties and stole my chance to be a nurse I’d trained…

  • Uncategorized

    Recovering from a holiday

    Recovering from a holiday can be hard, I know for me it is the thing that I dread the most and why I rarely go. But we all need a break now and then, so let’s talk about it. I just got home from 4 days in Scotland, we went for our best friend’s wedding, and it was amazing! But for me, my husband, and our friend Amanda, we needed to be careful because we all have chronic illnesses. So, we drove up on the Friday, and instead of sightseeing, we spent Saturday in bed resting and recovering from the drive. Sunday was the wedding, and we ate, danced, and…

  • Contributed posts

    How To Self-Soothe When Life Seems Totally Overwhelming

    Self-soothing is something that many people learn in childhood. It’s the ability to calm yourself down, even when the world around you feels overwhelming.  Unfortunately, many of us miss out on this critical developmental stage, either because of traumatic events in our lives, breakdown of our families, or abuse from parents. This means that we enter adult life without the ability to withstand the inevitable knocks and blows that it deals us. The good news is that there are a host of ways that you can self-soothe when life feels like it is getting too much. Here’s what to do: Breathe Deeply Deep breathing activates the rest-and-digest part of the…

  • Mental Health

    Dealing with travel anxiety

    This weekend I am going away for a few days to Scotland to my best friends wedding and right now I’m dealing with travel anxiety. I’m full of worry about what to pack and what could happen, so let’s have a chat about it. When you have chronic illnesses, both mental and physical, routines become something that help you to cope. Doing things in a particular order or a certain way is comforting and makes having illnesses easier to deal with. But routine can become a kind of prison, you can’t do everything the same every day, it isn’t living life to its fullest. So, when we were invited to…

  • Health Update,  Mental Health

    When insomnia rears it’s head

    When insomnia rears it’s head it can feel overwhelming and make you feel unable to control the situation. I’ve struggled with this so many times over my life and yet I am currently struggling with these things now. Usually my sleeping is something I can count on, I don’t nap anymore, even with ME/CFS, and I take CBD at night to help as well. But sometimes no matter what you do, insomnia can come into your life like an invader, taking your ability to rest at night or get things done in the day because you are so tired. The last week or so I have been struggling with this,…

  • Mental Health

    Awareness months matter

    Today my best friend made me cry, she sent me a BBC news article about chronic pain and how sufferers are treated. It reminded me why raising awareness means so much to me and why awareness months matter. I felt seen, like someone, a random journalist, cared enough to interview people and to write an article. Then a big place like BBC news thought it mattered enough to post it up and make it a push notification on people’s phones. I doubt the journalists realised how much this means to people who suffer with no help and no light at the end of the tunnel. But I wish I could…

  • Contributed posts

    THE WELLNESS ROUTINE THAT RELIEVES PAIN AND IMPROVES QUALITY OF LIFE

    Our daily activities leave many of us feeling extremely tired and exhausted and yearning for the best way to relax and unwind. Soaking in a hot tab has been recommended to achieve relaxation. Including soaking in the hot tab in the daily routine gives the body more than relaxation. The benefits of soaking in a hot tub include stress relieving, mitigating the pain caused by arthritis, helps in muscle relaxation, among many others. As more seek to tap into the benefits of soaking in a hot tap, the more hot tubs for sale are getting popular with each passing day. Regular exercising helps the body stay in shape, but sometimes we lack…

  • Uncategorized

    MS awareness week 2022

    MS awareness week 2022 runs from the 25th of April to the 1st of may and this year the theme is the uncertainty of Multiple Sclerosis. This disease has touched my life in many profound ways so let’s talk about it. Multiple sclerosis was a diagnosis that was given to me almost 20 years ago by a specialist because my symptoms fit. I had neurological problems, numbness, headaches, trouble walking and memory issues. I remember how upset we all were when in my 20s I was given this diagnosis and was started on a treatment that involved injecting myself every day. I saw the most amazing clinic regularly, had scans…

  • Uncategorized

    The process to get disability benefits

    I have spoken a few times about how the process to get disability benefits, mainly PIP has affected me. But today I want to talk about the steps so far and how they have really gone. Personal independence payment, otherwise known as PIP, is a disability payment supposedly set up to help you pay for things you need to be more independent. This is important as a disabled person and I have to say independence is hard to find, so anything to help that is very much appreciated. However, the way this process is set up it often feels as if they are on purpose trying to make it impossible…

  • Mental Health

    What I learned from my depression flare.

    I am starting to feel like a human again, so I thought I would look back on what I learned from my depression flare. Like a butterfly crawling out of its chrysalis, I am starting to feel refreshed, still battered, still bruised, but I am getting there. I am someone who tries to see the lesson in every day, and every experience good or bad. I have spoken a lot about mental health here on the blog, as well as on my YouTube channel, and being honest about how I am doing is really important to me. As I find ways that help me, I share them that is how…