By Jody Smith HERWriter October 10, 2011
The path of recovery from a voracious illness like Chronic Fatigue
Syndrome is uneven and sometimes hard to find. The more years you've
been sick with CFS the more bewildering the recovery map -- or lack of
one -- can be.
I forgot who I used to be in many ways. I had been this leaden CFS
lump in a housecoat with bad hair for so long, memories of my former
life seemed like stories about someone else.
I could hardly remember having energy with things to do, places to go.
As I eventually began to rise up from under CFS, I had no clue as to
how to get back to even a slim semblance of that again.
Not too long ago, I decided to get rid of some neglected piles in my
house. I'm not talking about newspapers on the floor, or the basket
overflowing with clean laundry. Not a mound of junk mail needing to be
sorted and tossed before it takes over the table.
This stuff has been sitting abandoned for years.
I have a drawer full of paperwork that has not been touched in a
decade. It holds bank statements and receipts for things paid for ten
years ago.
Floppy discs. (Yes. Really.) Old music cassettes. Half-used coloring books.
This in a family where the kids' ages range from 21 to 29.
I have a closet that has five pairs of roller blades my kids haven't
touched or thought of in a decade. Old decorations, forgotten jackets
and scarves.
I think of this stuff as The Remains. I don't use this term lightly.
It refers to what is left after life has departed.
The Remains have been squatting about my house since the day I dropped
the ball, and could no longer think or function because the life was
being squeezed out of me by Chronic Fatigue Syndrome...
The full post can be read here:
http://www.empowher.com/chronic-fatigue-syndrome/content/chronic-fatigue-syndrome-what-do-we-do-remains
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