Hey everyone. How are you all this week? I hope you’ve all had a great Easter holiday with family and friends, and over indulged in lots of very nice chocolate. This has been a hard blog for me to write; it’s quite personal one, and the subject has been lingering in my mind now for a couple of weeks.

Do you ever feel useless, or not good enough? Today I’m going to talk about that, and how it’s made me feel really low these last couple of weeks. I’m also going to talk about what positives have came from it.

We needed some stuff doing in the garden. Although I was once a gardener in a previous job, I didn’t know how to do the things that we needed to do, and that didn’t make me feel very good or very masculine. The voices in my head started telling me I was no good, I was useless, and ‘What’s the point of you being here if you can’t do this simple task?’ Some of what I had to do involved using a simple tool, but I had no Idea how to use it properly because I had never been shown how by anyone; growing up, I never had that kind of role model. I was beating myself up about this on a daily basis over the last few weeks, as well as sabotaging the diet that I was doing really well on. That’s gone out of the window now, but I’m trying to get back on track with it.

My partner was my saving grace, because she was telling me to be positive, was showing me what we had to and teaching me how to do things. That was the start of winning the battle against the voices in my head and beating myself up. Now I look at the positive because I’ve learnt some new skills. I feel so proud about that.

The jobs I was doing in my back garden also impacted on my physical health – my ME, also known as CFS (Myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome). That’s really hit me hard as well, but I now feel I’m above the worst of it. I’m starting to feel a bit more alive and don’t need to sleep every minute of the day, which helps a lot

This is what ME/CFS is: a complex chronic disease that presents with symptoms in multiple body systems. According to the World Health Organisation, ME is a neurological disease; susceptibility may be genetic but, in the majority of patients, the disease is triggered by infection. ME may be severe: 75% of those affected are unable to work and 25% are homebound or bedridden. ME is a common chronic consequence of viruses, with 10-12% of those with serious infection going on to develop the disease. An estimated 15-30 million people live with the disease worldwide. You can find out more here: https://www.meaction.net/learn/what-is-me/

Thank you for reading this blog. I hope it sends some positivity to you – if you put your mind to it, you can achieve anything you want. I wish you all good mental health.