Yesterday was a very good day. I paid a visit to my old workplace to see my ex manager to talk about setting up a placement to support me during the return to nurse practice course.We had a lovely chat and subject to her discussing it further with HR, I’m in!!
While I was there I managed to have a gossip with staff I knew from when I worked there 6 years ago, but there were a lot of new faces.
It felt really good being back there, for the first time in a long time I felt like my life is going somewhere instead of being in limbo.
When I first became ill and had to give up my career I naively thought I would automatically get my pension due to ill health. That was not the case because under NHS rules I needed to prove permanent incapacity. In my deepest despair and depression I thought I would never recover and would be ill forever. So I appealed twice against the decision and failed twice. I was in this mind set for so long that I would never get better because any energy I had, (which wasn’t much!), was put into trying to find a Dr to confirm I was permanently incapacitated, so that I could get the money I’d spent so long saving up. I believed and subconsciously told myself that I would always have this awful debilitating illness.
Eventually, last year I decided to give up on trying to appeal, I only had one left and after all it’s only 15 years until I’m 60, not too long to wait!!
Also last year a friend lent me 2 books that would change my life, “The Secret” and “The Power”. The theme of these books is using positive thinking and love to get what you want in all aspects of your life.
I think the best advice I got from the section on health was not to own my illness or give attention to it. I decided then not to talk about myself suffering from CFS. If I talked about it at all I would detach myself from it, describing the symptoms in a clinical way and not say that I suffer from them. When anyone asks how I am I don’t talk about my illness and say I’m well and mean it.
Here are a couple of extracts from the book on illness, ” disease is held in the mind by thought, by observation of the illness and by the attention given to the illness. If you are feeling unwell don’t talk about it unless you want more of it. If you listen to people talking about their illness you add energy to your illness. Instead change the conversation to good times and give powerful thoughts to seeing those people in health.” ” Focusing on perfect health is something we can all do within ourselves despite what is maybe happening on the outside”.
I truly believe that this was the turning point in my recovery. The mind is a very powerful tool and has a massive effect on our well being and health. I’m not saying that illness is all in the mind, but how we perceive it in our minds determines how we cope with the illness.
I am so grateful to my friend Mary for lending me those books, they were a life saver.
Carole Gardiner
back to life 