Mickel Therapy | Your Jaw Never Gets Tired

Some Days Positive Thinking Just Doesn’t Work

September 14, 2013

Anne Uncategorized anti depressants, despair, frustration, housework, Mickel Therapy, mistreatment, My Life Today, positive thinking, random Thoughts, self help Leave a comment

Negative Blogpost Alert !

You have heard the song It’s My Party And I’ll Cry If I Want To ?
Well this is My Blog and I’ll moan if I want to . . .
Feel free not to read on.

There are some days when all the positive thinking in the world just doesn’t work for me.
And I want to throw all my self-help books, gratitude lists, motivational, inspirational & philosophical quotes, etc etc etc onto the nearest bonfire.

And just scream :

I hate having CFS
I hate how I have lost so much of my life to it
I hate how it becomes more “normal” to have symptoms than not have them
I hate how I have been in bed for so much of this year
I hate how it is often 1 step forward, then 2 back
I hate the view out my bedroom window – the side of next door’s house, a brick wall.
I hate how the longer you have CFS the more symptoms you seem to develop
I hate how I have been treated by GPs

I hate that I have been taking anti-depressants for such a long time, maybe 8 years.
I actually wonder if they make the “brain fog” worse ? This is an incredibly disabling symptom (especially when trying to work).

I hate how I can’t manage GP visits well, always a disaster. I crumble every time.
I hate how my husband often plays it down to people. It makes me look as if I’m exagerating how bad it has been.
I hate that the house always needs cleaned.
(I can’t manage it without half killing myself, hubby is overloaded with stuff to do, and we can’t afford a cleaner.)
I hate that our grass is always overgrown at front and back.
(Same reasons as above but substitute gardner for cleaner.)

I hate that our central heating system doesn’t work properly (the boiler is approx 40 yrs old). The heating doesn’t heat the rooms upstairs well (bedrooms & my office).
Dreading winter.

I hate that many people seem to think CFS and ME are trivial
I hate that I have no help or guidance managing my CFS.
On my last visit to my GP I virtually begged for practical help. She just doubled my dose of anti-depressants. This was 2.5 years ago.
I hate that I wasn’t strong enough (physically or mentally) to have coped better with the stresses of the last few years. Partly caused by a tenant from hell, a very poor letting agent and scum/bullying tradesmen.
I hate that I cannot get away from my work and have a long long break
I hate that I know how much Mickel Therapy helps CFS, but I haven’t been able to use the “tools” for the last few years.
Everything in my life seems to be working against it.
I hate feeling that I just want to run away from everything at times
I hate how very pathetic this all sounds . . . !
Some days I am totally sick of everything.

I feel quite a lot better now for having this rant.

I am sure it is healthy and positive to let these bad emotions out once in a while. Coping with a long term (mainly negative) situation by just surpressing these emotions all the time – we are in danger of becoming like a pressure cooker. Ready to burst.

We can positive think all we want, but this will not change the practical reality of a physical condition.

To quote what David Mickel once said to me :

” The body is the boss”

ie. it will not be fooled into being told a situation is ok when it’s not.

Too much thinking ?

October 27, 2012

Anne Uncategorized balance, David Mickel, Mickel Therapy, PEM, symptoms, twitter 1 Comment

Have realised this week I need to be more careful with what I do. And not to get so carried away with things. If I am enjoying something and find it interesting and worthwhile – I tend to kind of throw myself into it and lose all track of time. And this can (and often will) make my CFS symptoms worse. Except I don’t realise this while it is happening or building up – but only when it is too late. If that makes sense to anyone ? That awful post-exertional fatigue – except that “fatigue” is a very lame description of how it feels. Plus very nasty headaches this week with eye strain and over-sensitivity to bright lights, noise etc. I got to the stage I couldn’t even tolerate watching TV or reading a book or paper.
Not ideal.

This week I have spent far too much time at my desk using my laptop – again.
I have to do this with my work stuff and that can’t usually be avoided. But have also being spending too much time on twitter. And thinking up stuff my for blog. Actually that gives the impression I am struggling to find stuff to use – but its the opposite problem. My head is full of over 20 years worth of stuff I want to get out – the problem is deciding what to write about first. So I end up spending too much time thinking and mulling over several options and ideas at once. Then end up too tired or headachey to write anything at all !
Overthinking stuff is maybe something I have always been prone to doing. In fact when I was doing Mickel Therapy back in 2008-09 David Mickel once said to me that his biggest challenge (ie. read problem !) was to get me to stop thinking so much. You see Mickel Therapy although decribed as a “talking treatment” is NOT a phsycological treatment. It has nothing at all to do with positive thinking, changing your thought processes, analysing, cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), etc etc. (Just decided I would add this as I know there will by many sceptics out there – which is a pity.)

Back to my point :
Although I really enjoy twitter as there is a whole world of interesting people on it, and subjects that interest me – I have to accept this involves too much time staring at my laptop screen. And I will keep doing this blog – but must try to get into a better routine with it. Just decide on an item and write about it. Don’t over-think it and don’t worry about trying to make my writing perfect either. It is just a blog after all – not a classic novel. Both these things involve me spending too much time thinking, and over-stimulating my brain. Twitter of course is fatal for this – so many people and so many subjects of interest on it. Interesting to me anyway. But although my head feels it is enjoying this – I have to accept that sometimes my body does not, ie, the bad CFS symptoms this week.

Not a very good post I know – more a note to myself.

Do any others with CFS or ME feel their symptoms get worse if spend too much time thinking ? Or over-stimulating the brain in some way ?

Must break the Vicious Circle

September 25, 2012

Anne Uncategorized backlog, fun Things, Mickel Therapy, PEM, relax, sleep, worry 1 Comment

I hope this week is better . . .

Last week did have good and bad bits of course – no one week is all bad. But from Wed onwards I guess I had pretty much crashed again have had been exhuasted most days. Didn’t get any work done at all in the whole of last week – but I lost a lot of sleep (and energy) worrying about it. And with due cause . .
Plus I haven’t been outside the house since last Monday night. Only being out of the house once a week (if even that) has become a common pattern over the last while. Months maybe – not even sure. The reason for this is not because I don’t want to go out, have nothing to go out for, or am depressed (as no doubt my GP would try to suggest). It is simply because I don’t have enough energy left over after working and/or doing house stuff to be able to get out.
But it is a bad pattern – and so difficult to resolve.
Even if I sort of force myself to leave work aside for a day (and not because of the CFS being bad) – and go out to do something nice – it is hard for me to switch off from work stuff – as there is always so much outstanding. And it keeps causing more problems when left too long. Always has a financial knock-on. This in turn causes much stress which = worse CFS which = me not being able to work . . . etc. Then I get so stressed and exhausted about it all that I find it hard to be able to even think of things that are nice to do !
The whole vicious circle over and over.

But I am starting this week on Tues as a local B Hol here yesterday – and I slept thru most of the day. Well was in bed – not always sleeping. More going thru dozens of stuff that I didn’t get done last week and trying to mentally organise what order to do them in today. This of course achieved nothing – for one I didn’t write any of it down. And I remember little if its not written down.

Anyway thats enough moaning.
To try to take small steps towards breaking this vicious circle – I am going to try to do :
one nice thing for me everyday.
And it has to be something that does not involve me thinking or analysing or learning stuff. eg. if reading a book – it MUST be a fiction story. And not eg. a book on how to improve my time management or one of my vast collection of self-help books !

I’m writing this here today on my Blog – in the hope that it will help me to stick with this. As I have tried things like this before – but couldn’t stick to them. NB. Anybody who has done (or is doing) Mickel Therapy will recognise this as being part of applying Key 3 – one of the Mickel Therapy “tools”.

Today’s nice thing is :
Go out for a coffee and buy a magazine that I want. Probably to the Silverburn Centre.
Midday or during the afternoon.
No later – as I will be so sucked into work stuff by then I either won’t be able to leave it. Or – just as likely – I will have CFS symptoms by then which will make it too hard. eg. headache, sore neck, feeling too weak, etc.

So I must do it. For my own good.
Going for morning tea & bagel now.

GPs treatment of CFS is . . .

September 20, 2012

Anne Stress anger, CBT, David Mickel, GPs, ME/CFS, medical professionals, Mickel Therapy, mistreatment, neglect 1 Comment

One of the main reasons I started up this blog was to get out some pent-up anger and emotions that have been blocked in over all the years. One area has been dealing with GPs and other health professionals.

Note :

I have removed this post now. For a few reasons :

1) Don’t want to get struck of by my GPs surgery !
Although it would be good to find another more “CFS/ME aware” GP – I don’t have the energy or the time to do this. Not right now anyway.

2) I don’t want to cause any offence to the clinical phsycologist I was referred to for the standard CBT treatment years ago. He was very nice and easy to talk to, and certainly made me feel much better about myself at the time. To that extent CBT did some good. On the emotional front.
But unfortunately was no practical help at all for my CFS.

3) I certainly don’t want to cause any offence to David Mickel in Elgin – who must be the best GP anybody with CFS or ME could wish to have. Having met him and knowing his sense of humour – I am pretty sure he would not be at all upset at my list of rants. But as he is doing some GP work again now (as well as the Mickel Therapy) I decided to add this anyway.

4) Now that I have had my mini-rant and got it off my chest – I feel much better for it !

Your Jaw Never Gets Tired

Some Days Positive Thinking Just Doesn’t Work

Negative Blogpost Alert !

Too much thinking ?

Must break the Vicious Circle

GPs treatment of CFS is . . .

Note :

Anne

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