Chronic Illness

I’m not sure if it’s just me, but I’ve always felt an intense ‘pressure’ or expectation to be happy. During those times when I’ve been swamped with pain and unhappiness, I’ve struggled as it’s somehow felt wrong and socially unacceptable, so I’ve tried to fix myself and smile over the cracks. It took me many

For many years I put a brave face on my pain and bodily dysfunction; I denied my disability, ignored my fatigue and I brushed over my emotional and spiritual issues. It was easier to deny them in a quest to try to function as normally as possible in order to get on with the business

There has been a relentlessness to the challenges I’ve faced over the last year: each one coming before I’ve recovered from the previous one, creating a backlog of intense emotion and a feeling of overwhelm so profound it’s taken my breath away at times. I imagine it’s a bit like being in the ocean in

I’ve spent a great deal of my life feeling deeply discombobulated as I’ve fractured, re-formed and fractured time and time again. In fact, it’s happened more times than I care to recall! This process is a part of life and it’s how we evolve but no one warned me just how gut wrenching and soul

I’ve thought a lot lately about pain, depression and my health challenges. I’ve opened myself up and laid myself bare. In the process, I’ve learned a great deal about myself, my life and my beliefs as I’ve journeyed through the up’s and down’s. I’ve tried to share my insights and experiences to help and inspire

Sometimes I have brief moments of carefree abandon when I feel uninhibited by the shackles of being human and I touch on something so exquisite and so precious it takes my breath away. These fleeting moments instil a sense of hope and passion in me, an awareness of the magic that’s inherent within the universe.

I just can’t do it anymore; the shutters have fallen and there’s nothing left. My will to push on is ebbing and waning. I’ve felt out of control; a silent witness. I struggle to engage in the intimacies of conversation or everyday life, and I’ve anaesthetised myself and built giant prison walls around my heart

In many ways, I’ve always felt like the broken biscuit in the box, the one that languishes in the bottom until there’s nothing else left and, even then, it doesn’t look like a very tempting treat. After all, who wants a broken biscuit when there are lots of other perfectly formed, whole biscuits gleaming and