Whilst we often hear about the fact that trauma can lead to chronic illness, something that we talk about less often is how having a chronic illness is a traumatic experience and can cause trauma. So, as today is World Mental Health Day, and I’ve just experienced a pretty traumatic health crash, what better time… More 7 Things to Know About Chronic Illness and Trauma
My last blog post was now several months ago, and I was talking about how much healthier I have been. One of the questions I posed at that point was, when should I start working? Well, the cost-of-living crisis rather forced my hand and, fed up with constantly stressing about money, I took the little… More Where was I? Freelancing with a chronic illness!
As you may or may not know by now, I am a huge fan of period pants. When I first discovered the existence of period pants, after being recommended them by a friend, I took to them straight away… and they have genuinely changed my experience of having a period. So, unsurprisingly, I was overjoyed… More Accessible period pants for the win!
Gay Pride month is one huge, commercial party nowadays. With slogans like “Love is love” and other vagaries I think we sometimes fail to talk about some of the very important things that LGBTQ+ people face in their day-to-day realities. So here are four things to think about this Pride month. Hate crimes against LGBTQ+… More 4 things to remember this Pride month
I recently re-downloaded Spotify, after not having used it for many years, and listening to my “favourites” playlist, I heard one of the songs that I used to cry to as a teenager driving home from school. This triggered a number of other memories and, after a sleepless night piecing everything together, I came to… More I was a queer teenager and I didn’t know it
One of the hardest things I found about getting sick was the feeling that I had completely lost my identity: who I was, and what made me me. In the first years of being sick I found this really difficult. Turns out, chronic illness identity, the future and dreams, are all big and complex topics… More Chronic illness identity, dreams and the future!
One morning last week, the day after exchanging some typo-ridden, slightly feverish texts with a covidy mum, I got an email with this blog post attached. This post is her reflections on my near-miss with covid, her experience of covid, and her thoughts on my chronic illness. So enjoy! As a parent – and certainly… More Mum, Covid and Chronic Illness, a Post by Mum!
By summer this year the number of people with Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME) is expected to have at least doubled since the beginning of the pandemic due to the huge numbers of people developing ME from covid. So funding and support for people with ME, and money going towards ME research is more necessary than ever. ME… More 4 Things That You Can Do for ME Awareness Month
Dear ME, Its been more or less eight years that I’ve spent with you and honestly I still don’t know how I feel about you. At all. I want to say you’ve taken my life away, made me live a half life, and doomed me to rot away in bed. But that’s really only partially… More Dear ME: a letter to my chronic illness
I decided to stay a little longer in St Helena whilst I was out there, so I spent several days rearranging my travel plans, which seemed like an opportune time to write this post. Having been lucky enough to travel quite a lot, both long and short haul, whilst being various stages of sick, I… More 7 tips for travelling whilst sick