At the time, I had been suffering from severe symptoms for over 4yrs and had only been given a diagnosis of ME (Myalgic Encephalomyelitis) a year earlier. I had spent that year in denial; no way could I get ill! I would beat it the way I beat everything, so I had tried every treatment I could to get better without actually stopping to acknowledge that I had a serious chronic illness or accepting the changes I would have to make. I just wanted my life back and I was going to do everything in my power to get it back! Of course, all I succeeded in doing was getting increasingly ill. I was fed up; I was ill, depressed and almost totally socially isolated as I just couldn't handle trying to explain the inexplicable to anyone anymore. I needed to know that I was not going crazy, that there was at least one person out there in this big, crazy, scary, alien world who understood what I was enduring.
