Explaining ME through Metaphors

[This page is a draft, not a finished article]

ME = living on an island surrounded by lava CBT = a therapist telling you the lava isnt that hot and to think of it as red water GET = a program where you get closer and closer to the lava each day so you learn to “tolerate” the lava Pacing = building a wall around the island so it’s harder to accidentally go into the lava

MCAS is basically just being allergic to existing. To be fair, so is ME/CFS…

To me if I had to explain PEM in imagery. It’s like I did a lot of exertion one day and the next day I wake up lying flat on the road. Everything hurts. It’s extremely loud (“hypersensitivity” + tinnitus) and every time I try to get up I get knocked over by a passing car. So I just have to lie defeated on a busy road while traffic acts like I didn’t exist.

Very Severe

Being very severe is like being Schrödinger’s cat. You’re both dead and alive, a ghost watching live go on around you without being included or noticed.

You imagine so much you want to share and say and do without knowing if you ever will. You wait and wait until you either get better or die.

severe me = death row your stuck inside a tiny cell all day long with no company, totally isolated from society. You have nothing to distract you, and your only hope lies in that you are proven innocent (a cure) or your given a better sentence (a treatment) but the people who could do that (the government) don’t give a shit about you and leave you rotting away barely alive.

Media focus on recovery

It’s like how they celebrate and glorify the winner of the hunger games, while ignoring and not doing any funeral or anything for the 23 others who died.