Re: Identity and choosing to be healthy

Its just really hard, laughingdogs, it really is hard. I went down the "faith" road with all my strength and lost. It left me in a deep hole and actually gave me psychological problems to deal with, which I never had in the first place. But I can really hear what you are actually trying to say, that be positive and be happy about life. I do believe that, as I have felt the power of just enjoying life and forgetting about your illness. Some people are so bad that this is actually not even possible. I know that when my heart was beating rapidly for days on end there was nothing I could do to enjoy life, that not even the best meditator in the world could stop skipping heart beats for no psychological reason, but rather reason because of a system pushed hard by exercise and stress.

I have learned a lot about the politics of the situation we are in. All the tools are out there for us to get better. All the knowledge and Science is out there. But money and politics are better off if we do not get better, because this would change the shape of the way our whole health care system works.

Do you know that in the UK, cfs/me is exclusively a psychiatric disorder and that the only funding for research is given to psychiatrists to run cbt and graded exercise tests that have already been proven to not work long ago?

This is why stories such as the one you provided strike me as a big problem. For ever 1 person that has their illness go away simply because of time, decreased stress, and improved immunity due to these conditions, 100 more are stuck in the same position because that 1 person's success story has provided "evidence" that this is a psychiatric disorder.

I totally agree that thinking of oneself as "sick" instead of something else is bad. Definitely give meaning to your life and create a future and present for your identity.