little miss reverse

A journey from ME/CFS to health using Reverse Therapy and Lightning Process

Friday, September 29, 2006

Cold

Now I have a cold. It's only a mild one, but it seems to be doing the rounds at work, so I suppose this is what being almost recovered brings.

My anxiety has subsided now and I'm looking forward to next Saturday when I will finally be moving in with my BF. I'm living in amongst piles of boxes and chaos at the moment, but it feels good to be doing it.

My BF pointed out that my big anxiety thing coincided with my period (again!). Three days in and the adrenaline decended and I started freaking out about the 'big move'. I haven't had that happen for 9 months (since I had a big bust up with a friend). I had completely fogotten about that kind of thing happening, but it does appear that when I have a big headmind/bodymind battle going on, it attaches itself to my period and then it kind of explodes on day 3. Great fun! At least I understand why it was such a strong reaction, even if I don't quite know how to handle it at the time.

A few of my friends suggested I contact my old therapist for some advice, which I did. The advice was that I was getting stuck up in my headmind and needed to get into my body. That is good advice for day to day stuff and generally is what I do and do very well. I didn't receive any guidance about how to stop my head going bonkers, which helped me make up my mind about whether to try Lightning Process.

I also had a phonecall from a friend who had recently tried LP and found it really helpful for a chattering headmind. My friend had problems with anxiety which were really impacting on life, so to hear that it was helpful gave me confidence to go for it myself.

I've applied to do the training course in January and I reckon that it will compliment what I have already gained from RT and help me get my worrying head under control.

It's pretty expensive (£500), but to be honest, I'm pretty sure from what I've heard that it is exactly what I need now. I know a lot of people would say to me. 'what if it doesn't work!'. I'm not thinking like that at all, I'm just thinking that I'm probably going to be fully recovered early next year. Because RT has worked for me, I think this will too as they seem to be in the same ball park in terms of theories.

RT has helped me to be really in touch with what I want and what I don't. It has helped me to be more assertive, confident and has got rid of my illness. I think LP will help me learn more healthy ways of dealing with stress and techniques for stopping the cycle of negative thoughts leading to anxiety and tension.

That should do it I reckon.

Thursday, September 21, 2006

Mister Tones...

...wondered why I haven't posted for a while. I've been busy and I've also had an increase in symptoms, which all sounds a bit bad, but it's just a rather large blip I think and hope.

After my last post, I went to hell-on-earth, oh I mean V festival. I'd been there an hour and said, I'm never coming here again. We had to walk about a mile and a half to the campsite carrying all of our camping gear, then we had problems getting out wristbands, then there wasn't enough camping space, then there was torrential rain. That was all before we even got onto the festival site. Then there were the horrid chavs chucking pints of urine into the air, the lack of toilets, the lack of water pipes, the rubbish sound systems and the general feeling of being down the city centre at 2 am on a Saturday night. Some of the music was great, but I was so exhausted by it all I felt like crying. Not a symptom in sight though. It's wierd, I cope brilliantly with any kind of physical stress you want to throw at me these days and even though I was physically exhausted, it only took me a good night's sleep to bounce back.

Since then, I've had a few things that have set of symptoms. Firstly I'm moving in with my boyfriend in 2 weeks time and I'm really not coping with the emotional turmoil of the whole thing. My initial trigger was connected to a relationship and moving in with him is setting off a whole load of chemical memories and general anxiety. I'm finding it incredibly difficult to deal with it which is setting off symptoms.

On top of that, I had a virus or a big ME flare up, a bit unsure about which it was. My BF caught something that was halfway between a cold and flu. I was with him when we were in the room with the person who he caught if from and we both said afterwards, bet we catch it. Anyway, a week later BF comes down with it, then the next day, I'm floored too. The thing is, I didn't get any sneezes, mucus, coughing, or any 'cold' symptoms at all. I had a banging head and felt fluey and really weak. Sound familiar? I'm not really sure if my body was fighting off the virus which caused an ME flare up, or what. It took me over a week to get back to normal, but then I have been completely back to normal.

Just to chuck something else onto the fire, I went to the dentist last week for the first time in 5 years. I'm phobic so have avoided going whilst ill as didn't think I could cope with the adrenaline. I got all worked up last week and ended up feeling physically worn out and a little bit fatigued too. I'm looking forward to Monday...got to back for the filling and hygeine appointment. I'm already stressed out as it is about the other stuff.

At this moment, I've just come home from work and I have tension and a bit of fatigue, which are the symptoms that I am left with these days. But, I worked 6 hours today, I normally work 4. I'll be in work for 6 hours tomorrow too. I've just got back from 5 days in Ireland, so I'm still able to do loads and even increase my activity when I'm experiencing symptoms. I just hate feeling so knotted up.

Generally I'm still on the up. I've had a lot more tension and fatigue over the last month and I don't think it will subside until I've moved in with my BF as I think that is the underlying stress factor. I am doing OK, but I am feeling frustrated and stuck.

After the experiences of the last month or so, I am convinced that my remaining problem is anxiety. I am symptom free as long as there's nothing particularly stressful going on, but that's not a long term solution. I want to try to have a baby next year and if anything is going to cause stress, then that will, so I need to find a way of dealing with the anxiety. I'm going to see if my old RT therapist might have some ideas, but I'm also toying with the idea of trying Lightning Process (www.lightningprocess.com) as it may help me.

Sorry for the long post and the even longer gap.