Bleh. I’ve gone from completely wiped out to angry to frustrated to whatever this is now. A dull ache of inconvenience and wishful thinking, all over, inside and out.

Annoyed because I can’t shoot. Annoyed because I can’t stand up for long enough to have a shower. Annoyed because it’s completely impossible to find a way to stand, sit or lie that doesn’t result in losing the feeling in one or both legs.

Last night, or very early this morning, I finally fell asleep with the words my knees hurt so fucking much I want to cut my legs off bouncing around in my head. I feel like my spine is broken in a hundred places.

My ears and nose are bleeding (just a little, nothing serious), my face is itchy and painful and swollen, and I have really unnerving subconscious reactions to more than one thing happening at a time.

If there’s music on and the phone rings or someone speaks to me, I instantly become so over-loaded that I can’t do anything more than huddling in the corner crying until the noise stops. This is very much unintentional and I feel so stupid and childish when it happens.

I’m still ok to do studio hire sessions because D, god of support and patience, learned how to set up all my kit and comes to the studio with me to get the lights and everything sorted out before the client arrives. I am beyond lucky, I know.

I can also do work at the computer, online things, processing, administrative bits and pieces. deviantART is helping to keep me sane.

But I can’t do anything else. I have a list of shoots to book as soon as I’m able to shoot again. I am sleeping 12-14 hours a night and even the time when I’m awake isn’t as productive as I’d like because my brain and body are both working in slow motion on about 25% power.

I know this happens to people with M.E. I know it happens to me. Hell, it HAS happened to me regularly for the last five years but every time things go from bad to worse it comes as a surprise and it’s hard not to take it personally.

I know it’s temporary. It might last for another day, another week or another month (oh god, another month, or months!) but it will lessen eventually. There are ups and downs, peaks and troughs.

I keep finding encouragement in the words of a very interesting artist and visitor to Scotland, who I have had the pleasure of meeting and emailing back and forth with recently. He said,

Feel better, TS! It’s really hard for me to conceive of someone with as much abundant energy as you down with ME. Seems totally incongruous. Or, you do a lot in spite of it.

So it goes. It could be much much worse and I am grateful that it isn’t. I am always grateful that it isn’t.