How Does It Feel?

Many people who know someone with ME struggle to understand how they must feel - especially as many people with ME struggle to explain. Here are some creative attempts to communicate the experience of living with this much misunderstood illness.

Frieda Hughes' poem How It Began describes her life, as she had known it, ending, whereas Stewart Henderson's more positive Imagine Me uses a series of vivid analogies to describe the frailty of someone with ME, and then contrasts this with his hope for the future.

Rachel Groves' My ME Life is a collection of pictures which illustrate the contradictions of her life since developing ME (click on each picture to be taken to the post in which it first appeared), while Rachel Miles' A letter to non-sufferers describes ME as an abusive and unpredictable partner.

Finally, artists Linda and Greg Crowhurst have illustrated how it feels to have - and to care for - someone with very severe ME in their Stonebird Gallery. If you have no experience of very severe ME, you may find these pictures distressing.