One continually wonders how one gets CFS/ME apart from going through all the known hypothesis, is it also feeling guilty about things one has no business to feel guilty about? Or does being ill cause the guilt complex to overwork?

So because I feel so guilty unless I am over 100% honest with you all, I will tell you how I feel today.

Lousy.

I was travelling along my feeling better route quite happily a few weeks ago ( see: How I feel now ) and looking forward to increasing my work load and getting off benefits who are driving me mad with their thirst to know about every penny I earn. I have to submit ‘figures’ to them twice a year I think it is although it feels like 6 times a year – all because I was earning £20 a week; when disaster struck in the form of an emotional upset that sent me reeling back to my childhood and hot-foot to a Counsellor to finally sort whatever it is in my past that can trigger an episode such as this.

Had the incident uncovered something that is the final chapter to my particular journey with CFS/ME? Was this the scab that was being painfully lifted?

3 weeks since the incident that sent me reeling I still feel lousy. I have cancelled my Perrin treatments which is possibly foolish but I can’t face the treatment because it is personal and I feel too exposed.

What I think has happened is that the incident has lowered my immune status further causing me to succumb to two infections currently doing the rounds in this area which caused further weakness.

The incident causing me stress also depleted my calcium status and one of the illnesses I succumbed to – diarrhea further depleted the calcium which left me with heart palpitations, anxiousness, distrubed sleep, emotional, and muscle cramps.

As i wasn’t feeling well I kept forgetting to take my calcium and fish oils and having cancelled my Perrin Treatment I was feeling worse and worse. Whereas before I could tolerate the odd slice of bread and some butter, I was now becoming very ill with the tiniest allergen – fever, terrible aches and pains, feeling irrational and needing the loo urgently every hour.

Does this mean that I think the Perrin Treatment isn’t working?
Does all this mean that I am thinking a psychological approach is required to heal CFS/ME?

Well no. I don’t think that. It is a fact that stress depletes nutrients including calcium. Or to put it another way, the stress reaction requires nutrients and if they are not available in the food or floating around in the blood, they are robbed from other areas of the body – the gut and the bones.

Just before ‘the incident which shall remain nameless’ I had added to my work-load because I was feeling better and my father had become ill and I was going down to him daily to help him out. So suddenly my days had become very busy – stress-over-load.

Then the incident which just tipped the balance to downhill.

I had rationalised and coped with child-hood stuff and was dealing with it on an ongoing basis. Also the calcium, magnesium and zinc supplements were making me strong. Strong bones. Strong nerve supply. Strong muscle actions. Strong emotions. Strong coping mechanisms. The Perrin Technique was clearing out the muddy waters and increasing the flow supplying continuous energy flow on a drip-drip basis that was steadily increasing.

The Easter break has given me some time off. And because of the Easter holidays I tend not to be so busy and have had nil clients this week. It has all served as a lovely break and I have been able to indulge myself and stay in my pyjamas and potter about. Joy! It has given me time to remember my precious calcium, time to sleep and dose and time to make a decision and say No, I am not doing that today.

Unfortunately I have CFS/ME.
Fortunately the Perrin Technique is helping.
Unfortunately it gives me more energy and I take the p*ss and do more than I should.
My daughter warned me last night that because I had done some pruning yesterday in the garden to remember to rest today. So annoying to be told my one’s daughter what to do! So annoying to have to rest.

I feel it is important to mention all this because so many of us CFS/MEers take a treatment process and feel better, then feel bad and think the treatment isn’t working.

Not many of us, sit down and laboriously remember all the stresses that added to the new ‘relapse’. As I said to one reader of my website – don’t call it a relapse, call it a smack on the wrists for thinking you could do so much.